Those Lovely Clichés
by KTwain
Summary: Cam, always in the background of the show, finally gets her turn in the limelight; much to her embarrassment and disapproval. It's only then do the others in the lab realize they know next to nothing about her. Completed.
1. Another Nail in the Coffin

**So although no one seems to like Cam as much as I do (especially with how underplayed but darkly hilarious she is), I still decided to write this. Give it a shot. My original plot for it came to a resounding crash with the twists of season six. I'm hoping I'm more inspired by reviews ;) and by where this season takes us. If she's still just as underplayed in this season, it'll be that much easier to devise a fictional background that's relatively plausible. Oh, this is T but I'd say like PG14 and up. Nothing bad that I foresee, just don't want irate readers! OK. I'll stop talking now. Happy reading! Oh, and review. Every time. **

* * *

"_Salty," the word was whispered huskily, his finger still hovering near his mouth, after capturing and tasting a bead of sweat that had been slinking down her neck with the ease of a panther. _

"_Sweet," he grinned, his voice even duskier, causing her to shake as his finger came up dripping again; it was too hot to hide from him. The air conditioning was beyond saving but she didn't care. The bar lights had been swimming with neon angels but this devil had taken her home and her overpowering crushing loneliness had let him do it. Everyone was gone; why shouldn't she have someone to take home to bed? _

_He didn't have a name. He didn't ask hers and she didn't bother him with those things that mattered so much in college but ceased after twenty-five. He instead, with a positively satanic grin, so much like that blonde devil that haunted her favorite novel - Sam Spade, leaned in an began to nibble on her shoulder. She shivered pleasurable and gave a clipped, short cry when he bit down a little too hard. She pushed him away briefly, but he went for her throat, like a dog for the jugular with surge of vengeance that sent a thrill of fear up her spine and simultaneously made her pant. The swift nips went from deeply pleasurable to a tad past vanilla. She winced and tried to push him back with a half deprecating laugh. He didn't budge and she shoved harder, irritated. He wouldn't get anything if he was going to be rude; hell, she wasn't asking him to be an angel. Lucifer here hadn't even bought her dinner. _

_He growled, with a sound that chilled her blood. It wasn't the growl of an aroused man, but rather the growl of a starving beast. Panicked now, and actually fearing for her safety, she immodestly pushed him from her. Her legs and feet against his chest gave her enough leverage to throw him from her skin long enough for her to register two things. One, he had ripped the skin from her neck, and she was bleeding. The second – his eyes had gone as red as her blood, and fangs had slunk out of his gums. _

"_What the –" she panted. _

"_I told you you're delicious," growled the demon, and he fell upon her again, his suddenly sharply clawed fingers ripping the entrails from her abdomen, her skin flaying under his razor tongue. She screamed, but there was something clogging her throat. She wasn't sure if it was her own blood. _

* * *

Cam came awake with a start, feeling the scream lodged in her throat and she rolled out of bed and vomited into the handily placed trashcan next to her sheets. The cotton was soaked with sweat, saturating both her body and her hair. She shuddered, terrified by an irrational nightmare buried in half truths from her subconscious.

"Goddamn Hodgins and his stupid goddamn clam bake," she huffed, hugging the shaking plastic in her arms, her own weak bile such a foul smell that she was caught retching up air.

What a way to wake up on a Monday morning.

Sunday afternoon and night had been spent in a reuniting circle with her newly returned peers. Angela was glowing and chatting up Brennan with her fashionista haircut, while Cam laughed as Hodgins teased Sweets mercilessly. Booth had been moody; what was new. She sourly refused to think of him.

It had been the newlywed's idea to hit up a newly opened bar in downtown DC, where a delicious pizza place had just gone out of business, vanished like a lightning bug squashed beneath the body of some newly decomposing corpse in a marsh. Cam ground her teeth as she ground the shampoo into her hair. She had to stop thinking in such graphic metaphors. The bar was a clambake joint, owned by a young couple from Maryland who brought the East Coast version of gumbo to the foreground of the nightlife. They had all shared a shrimp platter much too large for a group twice their size. There had been peanuts and dark beer, chicken wings and cocktail sauce. But that had been nothing compared to the easy comradely and the hours of related tales, falling back so easily into a family that had been wrenched apart, leaving Cam alone. Leaving her...well, abandoned was not a word she was inclined to use. Or to admit.

She wondered briefly if anyone else was as sick as she was; she didn't understand why she was so completely nauseated. But it convinced her to swear of shrimp for a while, and to never revisit that bar again. Cam resolved not to say anything at work; if it was just her that had food poisoning, it must have been that smoke she had snuck between drinks. Booth was constantly telling her they would make her sick. He had been right. Damn it. Damn him.

She showered in a sullen anger, mulling over Booth's new love. Lover. Whichever. This wasn't how it was supposed to go; Cam and Angela had been planning their triumph for years now, each silently cheering their champion on in the epic quest of Booth and Brennan.

But if she was honest with herself, Cam knew why she was so upset, having nightmares and the like. The reality of having every single one of her friends pick up their lives and leave – including even the young psychologist with whom she rarely spoke – reminded her forcibly that even her home life was ending. Michelle was a senior now; in a scant 2 years her new life with her foster daughter was ending and Cam was two years older and two years lonelier.

It was startling to realize that she had no one beside herself. She had no close family – Felicia was….well…Felicia just was. She stopped, frozen with a hairdryer pointed at her white lace bra, leaving her hair to flap dully around her pallid features, still dizzy and fatigued from her nightmare and the shrimp. What would happen to Michelle if Cam died? Or was injured? Michelle only had her, and Cam had been a poor guardian in planning ahead, or thinking of her future and her resources. She had managed to stack up a little college fund in two years, and of course Andrew had left some for his daughter as well, but they weren't scot free by any means. Already Michelle applied for scholarships alongside her college applications. It twinged at Cam's heart to realize she hadn't planned at all for her foster daughter's future.

It was probably for this reason that she was most upset. Cam knew that in the back of her mind, she had already picked out Michelle's godparents. She hadn't formally asked them yet, but she wanted to circumvent Michelle ever living with irresponsible Felicia. Cam swallowed and forced herself to button her blouse and stare unflinchingly at her puffy eyes.

She methodically and mechanically covered her weakness with smooth cover up, applying lotion liberally under the dark circles beneath her eyes, and livened her pasty cheeks with rouge. It was battle armor, of sorts, armoring herself against the truth that she had been planning to ask her best friend to look after her daughter, and his affluent and intelligent partner. Because deep in her heart, Cam believed they were destined to be "_partners"_ in a very different sense. They would be the parents she would want Michelle to have in any event. Brennan was certainly wealthy enough, if a little odd. But now…Cam wanted to growl. Booth had thrown a wrench in the works. What a meathead. Absolute thug. She would love to pistol whip him upside one temple and scream down at him to get his head on straight, at least for her sake. So finally someone could work out their life better than she could work out her own.

She squared her jaw in the mirror, packed her purse and slung herself into her car with careless grace in heels that could literally kill a man, given proper leverage. As she drove, she constantly checked her eye makeup in the rearview mirror, and clumsily made sure her perfect teeth hadn't suddenly fallen out from a demon eating her face off or rotted away from the turbulent bile.

She knew why she was dreaming of death; she had _actually _picked up the very same devil close to six or eight weeks ago, with the result of a very pleasurable one night stand. He had been a gun in bed, and polite enough about slinking out in the morning. Cam didn't know his name, and she didn't want to. He had held her close when she had felt the whole world had pushed her away. She had declined to mention the encounter to anyone. She almost laughed at the thought as she walked her power walk – her intimidating walk to battle – into the lab. Who would she ever tell?

"Salty," crooned a voice, and Cam jumped clean out of her skin, reminded forcibly of her dream in two respects. She spun, eyes wide, to see, with some disgust, Angela feeding her husband a pretzel at a time, as if he were a begging dog. They laughed, and Cam saw the bright lights wink off their gleaming white teeth as their smiles met in a kiss. Disgusted, Cam forced herself to bury her heart in paperwork at her desk, trying to swallow her pitiful need for human contact. She was stronger than that for God's sake. But underneath, she quailed that she wasn't.

She used to fantasize that while she was crying, a handsome man would sweep her off her feet and tell her that she enchanted him, even at the lowest point in her life. She always secretly yearned for a confidant, even if it was a woman and not a soul mate, in which she didn't need to confide, but who would guess what was troubling her long before she knew herself. Basically, she wanted Superman. Cam chided herself and tamped down on any more ideas of being noticed. She had come to realize early on in the family at the lab that people only noticed her failings when they were big and messy. She hated big and messy; it was humiliating and exhausting. The idea of getting into a heart to heart only sounded good in theory. In reality, Cam knew how much _that_ would suck. Jesus, she could hardly imagine pouring out her soul in great sobs to a stranger without listening in return and sitting idly, wringing her hands like a 30s con artist. The reality of opening herself up to someone else's scrutiny – especially to a point where they knew her better than herself – was painful and unlikely. She didn't ever want anyone looking that close. Who knows what they might see, or what she wouldn't be able to conceal? No, she said decisively, accentuating it with a smack off a sheaf of papers on the hardtop next to the keyboard, far better to be isolated and get nostalgic pains of loneliness than to open yourself up to that kind of suffering. How completely humiliating.

"I…could come back later," said the tentative voice and Cam looked up, so far dragged into Sherlock's Great Grimpen Mire of her own mind that she hadn't even been aware of Hodgins hovering in the doorway.

"What?" she said blankly, quickly trying to remember if she had been muttering aloud, a bad habit of hers, but one developed by much time alone and in the presence of the silent dead on lab tables at 1 am.

"I said, it's lunch time, and we're all gathered upstairs. You coming?"

"Oh." She plastered her usual tight-lipped smile to her face. "Yes, yes of course. I'll be right there." Predictably, Hodgins left without waiting for her as Cam stood and unearthed a Tupperware container of Italian food she had ordered with Michelle almost a week ago. It had been congealing in the fridge long enough.

She was hyperaware of the silence that descended as soon as her clacking heels resounded on the tin stairs up to the lounge where the makeshift kitchen was. Everyone watched her ascend the stairway and Cam concentrated her gaze on putting one foot in front of the other. She smiled brightly and slid into her customary place at the end/head (whichever way her petulant inner voice had construed it that day) of the table.

Hodgins sat on her left, Booth on her right. The two couples always sat side by side. Cam tried to let her features remain carefully detached as she remembered Booth and Brennan were not exactly a couple, thanks to the third wheel Booth had so irritatingly ingratiated in between them. Cam swallowed her bitterness. Their lives – love or otherwise – did not much intertwine with her own other than professionally. She need not agonize. _Perhaps_, said a snide little voice, _that's exactly why you do. _Cam, in no uncertain terms, told that little voice exactly what to do with itself as she savagely microwaved her food.

The conversation resumed again as soon as the microwave clicked on. She sank next to them, container in front of her, and concentrated on eating without spilling on her usual dress. There was some small talk, before someone brought up the previous night. Hodgins grinned.

"Glad you said that Booth," he bent at the waist, retrieving something next to a foot, "since I brought the leftovers!" With a grand flourish, he unearthed a large takeout container and snapped off the lid. Cam, panicked, soothed herself with the resolve simply to not have any; judging by the zeal that the others upheld while serving themselves, she reasoned she had been the only one that was sick. Brennan, a vegetarian, likewise abstained. Cam, who had not said anything, jumped a foot when she turned and less than an inch from her face swam a platter held by Hodgins.

"Ladies first," he said cheerfully, but she barely heard him. The stench roiling from the shellfish was so strong, it turned her stomach in an instant; the noodles she had just consumed revolted and with dread, Cam realized the ferocious headache she had been sledgehammered with would not allow her the grace to retch in private. Gagging, she fell from her chair, her high heels peeling themselves away from the soles of her feet, and scrabbled on her hands and knees to the nearest trashcan, mere feet away. She dimly heard the exclamations of surprise and worry as she heaved into the bucket. She didn't realize she was crying until big, cool hands stroked at her forehead.

"Hey, hey, easy there Cam. Easy."

"I'm okay," she choked, as her body convulsed around her spinal cord, the rest of her organs blissfully empty, and the burning sensation of vomit no longer plaguing her rancid, ravished throat. She wanted to die, and not from physical pain. This is exactly what she had been hoping to avoid; a big messy scene where her pathetic emotions got out of control. Irritated with Booth beyond reason, not out of any jealousy, but out of anger that neither Booth nor Brennan recognized what they had or their luck of friends, she fled, still shoeless, to the stairs.

"It's the shrimp," she gasped, hand poised on the banister. She turned to gain some composure, to salvage what little dignity she could in face of her weepy eyes and acrid tongue and was briefly aware of the shocked disarray of people half standing, when she felt the world spin. The lack of food, the sleepless night, the stress, the illness all caught up with her and forced the blood in her brain to over flood her orbital cavities. She cursed under her breath.

"Fuck. This cannot be happening," right before she bonelessly flew down the metal staircase with all the grace of a clipped bird, and crashed into a senseless heap at the bottom.


	2. Actions Speak Louder Than Words

"Cam!"

"Oh God."

"Get her up over here."

Crashing.

"Is she bleeding?"

"She looks okay."

"Bruised all over, I bet."

"So sick!"

"The shrimp?"

"She didn't tell anyone."

"She wouldn't."

"You got her?"

"Please," Cam could tell it was Booth's voice now, "she weighs next to nothing." Cam opened her eyes and felt immediately ill. Fatigue swamped her limbs into sunken heaviness as she felt her body sink into the cushions of the couch. People's voices were swimming around her ears like a stop motion movie whose sound effects blare in and out of focus.

"I'm okay," she whispered and the clamor, instead of ceasing, grew alarmingly louder.

"Should we call an ambulance?"

"You think she's bleeding?"

"Get a trash can!"

"Get some wet rags."

"She'll need water." Cam closed her eyes and briefly struggled with her inner self. Part of her wanted to collapse helplessly and let them doctor her. But the greater portion of her was too humiliated to allow that to happen. She was too strong to let her guard down. She was too sharp to let this happen. She had been direct and point blank with Brennan recently, calling her out on reaming Clark, both accusing and admiring that she and Booth were a couple. She knew she had crossed onto more sensitive turf, and was surprised to find her footing stable. Angela had commented that she had balls. Cam had her pride after all, and puking and languishing about like a swooning damsel from _Wuthering Heights_ was all just too gothically romantic for her reality. Literary fantasies were one thing, but the reality of someone mopping her brow, quite another.

She briefly dwelled on the fact that there were all these little sayings in the English language; more than English in fact. They were known as "idiomatic expressions," or axioms, or more commonly, as clichés. As sayings to help say what no one wanted. They were the already scripted lines in Shakespeare's greatest play; the ones that overcame the screaming silence of suffering alone. The lines you fed to other people when you didn't want them too close.

She instead pushed her arms up against the couch, simultaneously swinging her unshod feet to the floor. The world spun briefly, but she had spent much of her life in the lab, newly re-opened as it was. Angela's office hadn't changed a bit, except for the decorations that were notably barren from the shelves until Angela could restore them to their rightful places.

"People," her voice was low, authoritative. She was pleased; years of being a cop easily masked her shakiness. "I'm fine. Just a little tumble down some stairs. I'll get some bruises but overall it's nothing. I had a little food poisoning. I'm just tired."

"You didn't fall." Brennan's voice was accusing, "You fainted." _Action speak louder than words_, that's what Cam had to overcome; she knew she had to fool them, with all the wise man's words to soothe their injured minds, to shield them from the ugly truth. About her.

"I slipped," said Cam firmly.

"You didn't," retorted Brennan stubbornly. Cam focused on the ring of faces about her; Booth was notably absent. She wondered how she could convince everyone contrary to what they had witnessed with their own eyes.

"I thought I was going to throw up again," she explained quietly, using the voice she talked to Michelle with when she was being particularly unreasonable. Cam wouldn't admit it, but she knew it made them angrier than if she was raving. Her emotions would confirm their suspicions. Her apathy was clearly irking them. "So I closed my eyes. The world spun, and I fell down the stairs."

"I'm so sorry," it was Hodgins now, looking worried. "I didn't know you were allergic to shellfish."

"I'm not," Cam assured him, "but it must have been something else I ate last night that associated with the shrimp smell. Taste aversion and what not."

"Taste aversion," said Brennan, her encyclopedia voice blank as her eyes turned inward while she rifled through her mental dictionary. "The strong physical reaction against a certain food the body believes to be toxic. One taste could scar or mark the group for life, ergo every time you eat or smell the food, such as pork, your body immediately begins to feel nauseated as a means of warning you away from poison. Especially helpful for primitive peoples while gathering and sampling mushrooms."

"Yes exactly," sighed Cam, secretly proud of herself to so easily put them onto a more plausible cause of events without really seeing her pathetic life.

"You should be resting," soothed Angela, handing her a cup of water. "Food poisoning is draining, not to mention dehydrating. You should go home."

"No I…" Cam said weakly, but had to admit the idea of having a day to watch romantic comedies and insatiably gorge on all the foods she was constantly denying sounded like bliss. Something like wistfulness must have shown in her face, for shrewd Angela encircled the top of her arm with a hand like a manacle.

"I'll drive you. Even the boss needs a sick day."

"I'm not sick anymore," said Cam feebly, letting Angela win with ease, but still obligated to put up a front.

"You just threw up at work," laughed Hodgins. "Either you're sick or really hung over."

"Where's Booth?" asked Brennan, seeming to notice his absence as Cam did. At her command, Booth emerged with an armful of rattling Motrin, water bottles, wet washcloths and toast. He seemed completely crestfallen at seeing Cam awake and talking, even sitting up as if ready to stand. Cam was suddenly fervently glad she hadn't nursed the idea of letting someone else leisurely care for her; Booth was too infatuated with Florence Nightingale and sick nursing his friends.

"I'm not buying Stockholm Syndrome today, but thanks anyway Seeley." His face, previously so worried, broke into a reluctant grin of approval. She knew he secretly liked her rancor and bitchy comments.

"At least eat the toast," he whined. Cam frowned at her stomach; it was empty. She stared at the toast. It couldn't hurt. She gingerly bit out of it, chewed briefly and swallowed. To her relief, her stomach didn't seem to protest. On the contrary, it growled ravenously for popcorn and chocolate and George Clooney. She knew, as a doctor, she should avoid coffee (which she really desired more than anything at this point to shake her out of this insufferable fatigue she suspected was the lingering depression from the seven months away from her surrogate family), on her acidic stomach. Instead, she settled on Mountain Dew – the brown sodas worse for upset stomachs. She hadn't even heard Angela's ramblings, but graciously took the packed purse she was handed.

"I'm fine," she said, already eager to be at home, "really. I'd prefer to stay here and look over the-"

"I'll take care of it," said Brennan firmly, kindness flitting across her face in a rare display of understanding and even…affection?

"Cam you should go home. You look all ashy," said Booth. Cam frowned.

"Thanks. I put in _effort_ today in getting dressed." That was true. Booth's face broke into a smile.

"You always do."

"Go home," urged Hodgins.

"Don't let her drive herself," reciprocated Brennan, with directions at Angela. "I can follow you to give you a ride back." Angela looked surprised, and Cam was briefly stumped to Brennan's overblown significant look at her best friend. There was a wordless exchange and a grazing gaze down Angela's front that baffled her. Instead, Cam was struck by another wave of exhaustion. She tried not to sway.

"My shoes," she murmured. Hodgins was already bounding away, and Brennan had left to grab her own keys. Booth was reading through her face like a pulp fiction novel. She felt a blush burn across her features and jerked her face towards the floor. Something seemed to be confirmed, for his carriage stiffened and he put a gentle hand to her shoulder.

"Get some rest. We'll be here when you get back." She swallowed the lump in her throat. He knew her too well and was coming precariously close to making her cry. Damn him and his stupid abilities. What was _wrong_ with her? That was almost three times in one day she had broken down; in the last six months she could count on one hand how many times she had cried.

The car ride was silent. Cam irritably scratched at her arm, twisting the skin around to see what had bothered her. Of course she would be bitten by a rare bug, because that's just how the day was going. Scratch that. That's just how the past _month_ was going.

She gasped in horror at the little bumps on one of her forearms.

"What the!" Angela, at a stoplight glanced to Cam's wide eyes as she offered her arm for mute proof.

"Do you want to go to the hospital?" asked Angela in a worried voice. Cam's thrill of surprise was tamped and squashed at the idea of so ridiculously checking in for what even she – a coroner – could tell was a case of stress hives.

"It's fine. I think I was weeding poison ivy yesterday," she lied. "I thought there was something strange in my flowers!"

"Lucky it wasn't more than _weeds_," joked Angela, with heavy emphasis.

"I'd have to kill Michelle," agreed Cam cheerfully. Angela dropped her at her door with more fruitless protests from Cam, and then skipped to the front seat of Brennan's revving Mercedes. They both waved and through the window shouted suggestions and to be careful. They finally drove off and Cam, almost running in eagerness, stripped off all her clothes and pulled on an old nightshirt made from a football jersey. Putting on spandex shorts underneath, she got out her iPod, cranked on some terrible 90s music she guiltily hoarded and danced her way through the kitchen with a giant bowl, pouring everything that looked appetizing into one giant mix and then grabbing a wooden stirring spoon.

Laughing at the absurdity, she popped in her guilty pleasure of watching Will Smith in _Hitch_ and grabbed a crazy straw from 'Michelle's' drawer. She always protested the 18 year old was much too old to collect child's things, such as dinosaur shaped sandwich cutters and plastic crazy straws, but putting the straw in a 2-liter cola, Cam settled down to watch under a blanket, stuffing her face like a piglet out of the giant chip bowl. She fell asleep giggling sleepily when he kicked Eva Mendes in the face.

You go Will Smith.

Three hours later she was hugging the toilet and vomiting noisily, amazed at the quantity of what she had eaten. And exactly _what_ she had eaten. Peanut butter and popcorn? Chocolate bars smothered in raspberry jam? She groaned. She needed therapy.

Depression sucked.


	3. Big Brother Is Watching

She knew she was dreaming.

She didn't mind so much though, sometimes dreams were preferable to reality. But not this dream. Her head swam as it informed her of the circumstances, and like _Inception_, she was dropped ruthlessly in the midst of the action. She found herself pacing inside a quarantined room, wearing nothing but a paper gown. The paper gown she would die in. She was holding a phone to her ear and she was calm. Correction: she was speaking calmly.

"Dr. Brennan. No. Please don't come see me. Please turn your car around; I don't want anyone to see. Yes, I've contracted the virus. It's airborne and highly contagious. I will be dead within the hour. Yes. I understand." She cleared her throat, her eyes tearing up as she stared at the wall.

"Tell Michelle that I'm sorry this happened to her. Tell her that I've always loved her and that I hope she will be all right. No. Don't let her call me. I don't want her to...just in case I...Brennan, please keep an eye on her, and make sure Booth does as well. Speaking of Booth – tell him…tell him I love him and to watch out for Jared. Tell him not to be too hard on the kid. Tell him it was my dying wish. And um…" Cam realized it was far too easy to speak in a detached voice. She should have been screaming, knowing she was dying, feeling her body slowing down as her blood cells gave up the fight. The tinny voice on the other end said hesitantly,

"Cam…" Cam shook her head ferociously to keep from letting her throat close up. She may never be able to say this again. She had to say it. "Tell my father not to worry. Tell Booth to call him. Say 'Hoya Saxa.' It's the alma mater for Georgetown. He'll understand. And tell Felicia…she was a good sister." Cam almost laughed bitterly into the phone. "And Dr. Brennan…Brennan. To all the lab – it's…it's been an honor. Tell them all that I was blessed to have them as my family…for however long it lasted."

"Cam…" Brennan's voice was calm. "I understand. I do." Cam nodded, eyes bright as she took a shuddery breath.

"And just between me and you…" Cam felt the world begin to spin and her breath sped up; this was it. "Between…you better…love…love him."

She didn't hear the response; she was already dead.

They say dreams are over once you die, and Cam was rather bemused to note that they weren't; it was as if the movie had gone dark, credits and all, and no one had thought to turn on the movie theater lights nor start another movie. She looked around; it was darker than dark. It was nothing.

"Well, are you just going to stand there all day?" With a gasp, she spun around and her jaw dropped, as did all the tears she had been holding back in life.

"Anthony?" His handsome face broke into a grin as he mocked her, his arms open for the hug as she flew into them.

"Oh it's _Anthony _now. Jeez Camille. Or should I say Millie?" he was smirking, and she was so bewildered and overjoyed, she didn't even smack him for the hideous nickname.

"Tony, Tony…" she realized she was murmuring his name over and over under her breath, clinging to him, unbelieving that this was true. She felt his arms; they were large, muscular, and solid. He was really there. And he was well. Nonplussed, she looked around. They were still in nothing, but it was a lighter nothing.

"So am I dead?" He laughed down at her, his big teeth flashing in his handsomely dark face. He looked more like their father than Cam or Felicia.

"That's a matter of opinion. Walk with me," he commanded, and she was only too happy to comply.

"You look good Tony," she said, squeezing his hand in hers. "But you're so young! Look at me, I'm old now." He laughed.

"Thirty three is hardly old." She didn't speak but she didn't have to. _Hell of a lot older than you ever got to be_. The entire air about them resonated with the thought.

"Yeah…thoughts and dialogue are pretty much the same thing here," nodded Tony sagely, and Cam blushed.

"What is this place?" she asked, tilting her head up at him. He was tall; at least six feet.

He laughed and gestured around.

"What you don't recognize it?" Without noticing, the nothingness had faded gradually into muted colors and shapes until Cam realized, turning around and the hot sun banishing the last of the wisps of fog from her forearm, that she was standing in knee high grass, a rusting car fifty feet away.

"Papaw's farm?"

"Hardly a farm," laughed Tony. "Just a house out in the country of upstate New York."

House was a nice word for the low pitiful building that huddled, like an abused collie, into the grass several hundred yards away. Similar to its owner, a slumping tree holding a ramshackle collection of haphazardly nailed boards crouched to their left.

"God the tree house is worse than I remembered."

"Hey, we built it by ourselves out of what we found," pointed out Tony. "That's pretty good for being kids."

"Well I remember getting a lot of cuts, and you putting your foot through a nail." She stared at the tree; it looked like a jungle gym that they build on modern day playgrounds. There was one sorry looking tier. The rest of it consisted of boards nailed between low spreading branches like haphazard catwalks. There was pieces of frayed ropes that they had tied up like Tarzan to swing about; that's how Tony had landed on a bent nail. It had gone clean through the bottom of his foot until it came out the top. Their mother had looked at it, scoffed, and said that in all probability he had already bled out the infection. Neither of them had gotten Tetanus shots until Cam was fourteen.

Those had been the best summers; the adventures of Tony and Cam. They had lived like Tarzan of the Apes in their tree house, which was also a Greek temple, and a wild safari hut and a million other adventures. The rusting car with bean sprouts curling out the trunk was their getaway car, their NASCAR adventure, and their mafia pimp low rider. Felicia did not play with them; she was significantly younger and disliked pain and dirt. Their mother had played obvious favorites. Felicia was constantly being groomed inside the house while their father and grandfather had watched football as Cam, her brother, and sometimes her cousins would play soccer outside, or collect bugs, or climbed into that tree house and nailed things together until their fingers splintered and bled.

Yes, those were the days when her house was _home_. Before everything happened. She swallowed, remembering Tony's long battles as he wasted away before dying while she was in sixth grade. She hadn't even cried at his funeral but had started coldly, angrily, at her classmates who had never known him, as they wept openly over his open grave. The hypocrites. Cam had never told anyone about him. Not after that First Boy. The one she lost her virginity to. The one who started her horrible teenage years of drinking and running from her father, Felicia nagging, taunting, bribing and threatening her from the corners as Cam tried desperately to understand what it meant to suddenly be the oldest.

She jerked her head suddenly to the left, staring at Tony, who was looking healthy and outrageous at fifteen, three years older than she was at the time of his death. "Hey, meathead," she called; he was busy swinging himself into the shambles of a tree house that was shaking precariously beneath his weight. He glanced over.

"Yeah what's up?" he hopped down and jogged over. She laughed, and the world swam a little she shrugged and realized they were both walking side by side down a hallway of their house towards the kitchen. It was the most natural thing in the world, something that had occurred a thousand times.

"Hey, where's your wheelchair this morning?" Tony laughed and rolled his eyes expressively.

"Oh that old thing. I didn't feel like putting up with it today."

Cam's eyes widened, wider and wider until she jerked her head up with a start out of her bed. She was shaken and overwrought. Both terrified from dying, she felt herself all over, making sure she didn't have a life threatening disease. Then her eyes flooded until she was trembling. She hadn't dreamed of Tony in years; but this had been no dream. He had been so real, and solid, and _there _for her, the way he always had been. He had been 100% accurate, when Cam wasn't even sure if her memory of his face was that good, much less of how he moved, how he spoke, how he always scratched his left ear when he was confused. She had forgotten that. She gave a happy hitched sob as she looked at the clock, hugging herself before she stopped the single drip of a tear down her cheek with an exclamation of seeing the time through swimming eyes.

8:49! She was going to be very, very late. Jumping up, Cam turned on all the lights and forced her struggling, shaking limbs into tight clothes. She grabbed heels from her closet and rushed into the kitchen. She finger combed her hair and grabbed a pouch of makeup to apply in the microwave reflection as she nuked her to-go oatmeal.

She sprinted out to her car and moaned when she was immediately drenched in cold October rain. Welcome to DC. She scrabbled at her door handle and yanked it open and with three or four shaking attempts, she managed to shove the key in the ignition and turn her car on. Before she could force the shift into drive, she caught a glimpse of the clock.

2:56 am. Two o'clock. In her swimming vision, the 2 had linked blurred lines into an 8. With a heavy sigh, Cam got out of the car and went back inside. She slumped down at her table and ate her lukewarm oatmeal. She blearily thought of going back to bed, but her mind was still shaking, and so she decided to read an easygoing romance novel at the table to calm her down before slinking out of her clothes. She opened the first thing she could tease from the shelves, and within five minutes was asleep.

* * *

"Cam." Cam groaned. "Cam. I'm leaving now."

"What?" she said in a muffled voice, her lips pressed to something that smelled funny. Like a newspaper. She didn't read the newspaper. It was sticking to her drool.

"I'm going to school."

"Michelle?" Cam levered herself off the table with both her hands, grunting in surprise to find herself still in the kitchen. Her foster daughter was staring at her with some trepidation.

"Did you get to bed last night?" Cam nodded, staring hard at the grained wood at the table, not sure if she could bring herself to look at Michelle. She wasn't sure she could even think about anything this morning, much less her dreams.

"I just got up at the wrong time. My alarm went off and I got dressed. I made it to the kitchen before I realized I had time." Cam declined to mention she got up at 2. Michelle assumed she had gotten up, as usual, at six to go running.

"Oh. Well I'm going to school."

"Okay," sighed Cam. "Thanks for waking me Michelle."

"Yeah. Sure. No problem. Have a good day at work." With an awkward half hug with one arm around Cam's shoulders from behind, Michelle walked outside, got into her car, and let herself down the slope of the driveway. Cam looked at the clock and stared at it for five full seconds to make sure her brain was registering the correct time.

8:32. Great. With a sigh, Cam got into her own car and drove through her favorite coffee shop on the way to work.

Everyone was happy to see her, but Cam escaped their clutches, fleeing to hug herself at her desk, trying to think only of Tony, to grasp at the details bleeding out of her mind, bringing tears to her eyes. She had so long repressed anything about him, so long had stopped searching her own mind for more memories, she had completely been unprepared for the baseball bat to the stomach of a dream like that.

No one even knew she had ever had a brother. She swallowed and jumped ten feet when Booth cleared his throat. He had obviously been standing in the doorway, watching her as she shakingly pushed her hair behind her ears.

"Didn't sleep much?" he said; he was half in shadow. Cam shrugged defensively.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He stalked towards her, rolling forward with the grace of a tiger; she realized she hadn't even turned on the light because he was in the dark. She flinched when he raised a hand to touch her face.

"Feeling jumpy?" he chortled; there was no mirth in his laugh. His eyes were devouring her scared ones. She stiffened and clicked on her computer.

"Shouldn't you be with Hannah?" Booth suddenly leaned in close to her face, so close, she could feel the hot breath against her face; his eyes focused and studied her cheek as she trembled; what was the _matter_ with him? What was he doing? He narrated aloud, in a low voice.

"I am happier than even Jane. For she only smiles, but I laugh."

"What?" Cam snapped and Booth's finger traced her cheek.

"That's what it says on your face." He squinted some more, absentmindedly tilting her chin towards the light of the computer screen.

"Mr. Darcy," he mused. "Reading Pride and Prejudice late last night Cam?"

"What?" With fumbling fingers, Cam pushed past him and turned on the light. She took a compact out of her purse and tilted her face. To her mortification, her tears from her dreams had drenched her face against the ink of her cheap paperback book. The ink words had imprinted themselves onto her cheek. Not one person had noticed, but in all fairness, she had been turned away.

"I…I…" Booth's phone rang, and he answered it with his customary clipped salutation.

"Booth." With one last lingering look at Cam's blushing face, he left.

She rushed to the bathroom to scrub the tear-blurred words from her skin. But most of the stain was underneath, and couldn't be scrubbed so easily.


	4. Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

**Okay, I had to change the story title from "Screaming Silence" because another author started a fic around the same time with almost the same name and people were getting very confused. It's fine. Also, I just want to put a hit out for everyone to finally recognize this fic is probably one of the few that does not demonize Cam into the all seeing enemy of Brennan. She's just a girl, just an ordinary girl. Review ;) Please. Seriously. I knew a lot of people wouldn't jive with the story, but the lack of any feedback - positive or negative - is killing me!**

* * *

"Whoa, Cam," same Angela's sultry but shocked voice on the forensic platform. "Rough night?"

"_Excuse _me?" asked Cam in shock. She had been having a relatively normal couple of days since falling asleep in the book and her dream about Tony. Today, though, was bad. It was the day before the twentieth. Not the twentieth of October, but the twentieth anniversary. Of Tony.

Felicia was in town.

"The bruises, on your arms," gesticulated Angela, and Cam looked down in surprise and genuine mortification. How had she not noticed those getting dressed? Sleep deprivation, she consoled herself. She scowled to think of Felicia, blissfully ignorant of what it meant to have a high powered career, and who was now sprawled across Cam's bed, fast asleep.

Hodgins came to squint at them, and Cam's blush darkened; she thanked God for her latté skin to keep her embarrassment from being too public.

"Rough bar hopping?" suggested Hodgins with a wink. "Or how about mosh pitting?"

"I…uh…"

"What are those from." It was so obviously not a question that Cam flinched as both Booth and Brennan, carelessly in synchronized steps sprung up the stairs, but carefully not looking at each other they way they had been since everyone had met Hannah.

"Did somebody grab you?" It was Angela again. Cam realized she was staggering slightly like a drunk, turning as quickly as she was to face her attacker in her heels.

"No, no-"

"Did these come from sex?"

"Whoa. Inappropriate," she chided Booth, but her tone belittled him, underneath saying _as if that would ever happen_.

"Nobody grabbed her," offered Brennan unexpectedly; she wasn't even looking at any of them. She was already bent over the body, staring at it with close eyes and intense focus.

"Well what's _your_ theory Dr. Spock?" Booth's voice was testy and Cam threw him a glance, folding her arms across her body, possessively covering her bruises with her hands.

"She's doing it," Brennan said, staring at Cam with blue eyes that bore into her very soul. Yet as damaged as they were, they were also…compassionate? Possibly even understanding? Cam had to recall to herself her colleague's singularly impossible upbringing and childhood. She remembered all too well when it had been wrested into focus for the entire lab to gawk at – on multiple occasions. Cam had never given it much thought, but Brennan had conducted herself with a careless grace she envied and yearned to learn.

"What?" sneezed Hodgins.

"Huh?" grunted Booth. Angela chewed a piece of her hair like a 30s ingenue.

"The bruises," explained Brennan patiently, standing to her full height. She mimicked Cam's pose, arm over arm, her own fingers indenting the flesh of her forearms through her lab coat. Cam's cardigan and own lab coat, which would have saved her all the attention, were hanging over the back of her office chair. "It's from holding yourself so tightly," she said, her voice low but ringing clear and true, "that you leave marks."

Eight sets of eyes studied Cam intensely.

"Something you want to share with the class there?" asked Booth sarcastically. Angela immediately moved, hand out to place over her own and Cam tripped backwards before her pity.

"I'm always in my office-"

"It's Felicia," Cam heard herself blurting unexpectedly. Booth's retort was quick, his eyes suddenly concerned.

"What about? What happened?" Cam rolled her eyes abrasively, her voice as scathing as she could muster to impart to Booth the finality of the conversation and how little it bothered her.

"She's in _town_. When I can't say anything – well I just cross my eyes and shut my mouth, just watching." Booth laughed and Hodgins joined in. Cam forced herself to laugh to, and only then did Angela giggle. The only one not even to smile was Brennan, who watched her steadily, sympathetically, before returning to her perusal of the bones.

Cam took the grace to make her escape, but not before she said,

"You look very nice today Brennan." Brennan straightened, flushed, and Cam could tell she was pleased – which led to the conclusion she had in fact put in extra effort.

"Thank you," she said with composition. Cam smiled her usual smile and signaled at Angela with raised eyebrows to contribute, her own dark eyes flicking significantly between Booth and Brennan until Angela rushed to gush about her necklace. Cam retreated with head high, heels clacking, and pride dragging.

Last night had been hell.

* * *

"Camille?"

"Felicia!" Cam infused cheery warmth into her tone at seeing her sister again. She had done something different with her hair. Of course. At least this time it was black, like her own, and flattened.

"Oh Cammie!" Felicia ran from the taxi into her arms, throwing herself, as usual 'forgetting' the cabbie's fee, which Cam had to pay out of pocket, and disregarding her elder sister's slimmer build, strangling her neck with overblown emotion.

"I don't know how I can do this. I'm so glad I won't be alone tonight!"

"Yeah," Cam panted, lugging Felicia's suitcases up the stairs; Cam herself had the flaw of packing heavily (who knew what you could need?) but this was ridiculous. Later she would see Felicia had brought at least three different dresses for night clubs; as if she would need them. Maybe she would.

"Lisey," she said hesitantly, "you know that Tony-"

"Oh don't say it!" Felicia cried dramatically, simultaneously flinging up a hand and swooning onto the couch in front of the television. She was flipping through takeout menus on the coffee table before Cam could finish her sentence. Cam conceded defeat and put Felicia's suitcases in the guest room.

"What I meant was-" she tried again, but Felicia wagged a finger at her, gesturing with one perfectly manicured nail (which Cam was sure she purposefully did to mock her sister's short clipped nails needed for lab work), as a gesture to the phone.

"That's right. Three large pizzas. Two 2-liter sodas. Uh huh. And 2 boxes of chicken wings. One spicy. No I don't want garlic sauce! Ew!" Cam opened her mouth, but shut it in defeat. It wouldn't even matter if she told Felicia that the garlic sauce was her favorite part. She was too busy worrying about the quantity of food she was ordering for two people and the cost Felicia would 'promise to pay her back.'

After she punched the dial on the phone, Felicia steamrolled any means of Cam being serious by sighing, turning on a movie three times the volume Cam usually watched at and huffed in melancholy.

"It'll take an_ hour_ for the food to get here," she whined petulantly, batting her lashes at Cam. Cam knew the routine. Felicia wanted something.

"Do you want a snack?" she played dutiful hostess. Felicia, instead of accommodating guest, played herself.

"Popcorn!" she squealed. Cam nodded and had taken one step before Felicia's usual _Harry Met Sally_ qualifications began. "But no butter! I'm on a diet. But it can't be dry, so a half cup of olive oil warmed with margarine. But not too much or it gets soggy. And salt, but only sea salt. The kind they put on pretzels at the fair. And make sure that when you get the drinks, please get them with ice – but too much ice doesn't let you have enough. Okay?"

"I'll make a pitcher," smiled Cam tightly; that was when the crossed arms had first begun. Her lungs were so full of _not speaking _they felt like they would burst.

"Great," squealed Felicia. "Oooh! Hitch! Let's watch that!"

"I actually-"

"Super!" simpered her sister. Cam decided to take as long as possible in the kitchen; it wasn't possible at all as soon as her sister smelled the popcorn, she demanded to have it brought out to her, sans topping before it could get 'cold.' Then she wanted lemonade. They didn't have any; Cam made some.

By the time she emerged from the kitchen with all of Felicia's specifications, the movie was more than half over. Cam sat down, and refrained from touching Felicia's bizarre popcorn. She poured herself a large helping of wine.

"Yum! What's that?" Cam sighed. _Only my favorite_, she wanted to snap. _Found only in one place an hour away_.

"It's a red-"

"Gimme!" Screeching like either a banshee or an imitation of an adorable toddler, Felicia bounded from the couch, her hair bouncing and snatched the glass from Cam's fingertips.

"Mmmmm!" Her eyes went as large as saucers. "Yummy! Can I keep this glass?" Cam swallowed again.

"Sure." She attempted a tight smile and got up to get another glass. On her way to the kitchen, she noticed the world spun slightly; she felt faint. She decided that in fact, perhaps the wine wasn't the best idea. She turned back from the kitchen just as the doorbell rang.

"Could you get that?" called Felicia. "This is my favorite part. Oh – and I promise I'll-"

"Pay you back," chorused Cam under her breath as she opened the door to get the food. It was $78.

By the time Cam had gone to bed, Felicia had polished off the wine. It had been $120. Cam wanted to groan.

Having a sister was suspiciously like being married, without any of the shoes going in her own closet.

* * *

Cam couldn't even sleep. She felt nauseous and sweaty. The air conditioning was not even close to cold enough; it was broken but she didn't have the money to pay for it, at least not after what Felicia had taxed her through food and transport alone. If Cam didn't know better, she would have suspected that the taxi had driven from New York. It had still been $80.

She was staring at the clock. Insomnia was an inevitable part of her listlessness, helping lend a hand to her constant fatigue and churning stomach. She wanted to feel like herself again, but it seemed a huge vortex had opened when the Jeffersonian had closed down. She was sure a piece of her was still missing; she wasn't sure what catalyst would even trigger its return. Deep, deep down, in the darkest recesses of her soul was the fear she refused to acknowledge but still knew existed: that part of her may never return.

So she was awake when the noises started. Cam wanted to scream. Trust Felicia to make a big deal out of something she would have never given a second thought about had Cam not mentioned her dream in passing over the phone. Felicia hadn't even _wanted_ to know the details. Now, there were soft little crying sounds – like a mewling cat – coming from down the hall. Cam was so envious that Michelle could beg the night away from her aunt; Felicia was just as demanding of her daughter as of Cam herself. Michelle had quickly learned that absence made the heart grow immeasurably fonder of Felicia than she could have ever wished. She had claimed an "emergency study party" and was sleeping and attending school with her best friend for the two nights Felicia was in town. She left the morning of the third, to Cam's relief and guilt. She should be nicer to her sister, she knew, but it was damn hard when Felicia was so damnably annoying. And making a fuss was even worse; the drama wouldn't die down for a year, and Felicia was a big believer on tattling to Daddy.

Cam pulled a pillow over her head. She refused to listen to this. She felt a deep burning resentment. Felicia had only been eight. Felicia had hardly known Tony at all and now she was crying as if her heart was broken. Cam tossed beneath the cotton on her face; she was too overheated to keep it restricting her airflow and warming her skin temperature for long. She threw it across the room. She sobs hitched and stopped. For a breathless instant, Cam had hope.

They started in three seconds – Cam counted them through her heartbeats.

As she lay there alone in her bed, the sobs slithering into her head, Cam realized they weren't typical Felicia. Usually she was loud, messy and theatrical. Anyone in a mile's radius was bound to know any happiness or ill temper Felicia felt. She didn't wear her heart on her sleeve; she had a goddamn megaphone.

These sobs were quieter, more ashamed, more…broken. Cam sat suddenly up, listening harder, her heart pounding in response. The anguish she heard in those cries was not foreign. As a cop, she had heard plenty of heartbreak, and a good city's worth of agony. Felicia wasn't faking this – and she was hiding it. The sobs were quiet, muffled, as if her face were pressed to her knees.

Cam didn't decide so much as her feet hit the floor. She crept down the hall and peered into the crack where Felicia had left the door open for "airflow" but Cam knew it was really for the light she had "accidentally" (but kindly refrained from mocking) left on in the kitchen.

Felicia was just as she had suspected. She was curled in a fetal position, her face to her knees, her arms shivering and empty. Without a word Cam slipped up behind her sister and into her bed, her skimpy tank top and short shorts riding against the cool fabric of an empty space. Felicia didn't say anything either, and as Cam sat her up, and gathered her into her arms, Felicia collapsed into grateful tears to Cam's neck. Cam could feel the hot tributaries wending down her bare shoulder blade. She wondered if she were doing it right: the comforting.

It was dark – far past midnight – and Cam had to wonder what sort of picture they painted at that very moment. Here were two lonely women, sisters, clinging to each other like girls. Cam was supposed to be older, wiser and better at comforting, at understanding. Yet she felt awkward. She didn't feel like she was helping, or that she was mending a piece of herself as she sat and cradled Felicia. On the contrary, she felt as if someone had thrust a newborn baby into her arms when she had never before held an infant. She rocked her to no particular cadence and her skin slipped from its positions often as she readjusted. Felicia didn't seem to notice, but Cam despaired at her inadequacy to fulfill the most basic of big sister needs.

"Thank you," whispered Felicia into her neck pitifully. "I miss him so much. I can't even tell anyone how it's affected my life; you're the only one who understands." Cam nodded in agreement.

"I know." Her arms tightened protectively and she felt despair uncoil from its dormant position and rear its ugly head. Cam closed her eyes as it swallowed her whole and tugged Felicia to her feet, leading her to her own bed, where the sheets smelled of her shampoo. Felicia murmured the observation sleepily as they lay down, side by side, Felicia exhausted and spent, and Cam the same yet wide awake.

Felicia drifted to sleep in her arms as Cam gave into the insomnia and the crushing weight of the despair. After she heard Felicia's even breathing, Cam slunk into the dark living room where she sat, unblinking, unseeing, in an armchair, knees to chest, her arms grasping the other tightly across the empty space her heart would be, pushing her scant breasts up to hide the hole. She didn't notice the stiff locked fingers or the eventual bruising of her arms after hours of not moving, of hardly thinking, of simply _being_. She didn't even have the energy to cry; there was only the dull, age old anger she had felt watching people cry over his grave. The hypocrites.

_Felicia_, she laughed bitterly to herself. She didn't even have the heart to tell her own sister what she had tried all evening to say.

He hadn't died until tomorrow.


	5. What's Best Left Unsaid

**Thanks for the phenomenal reviews! Please, please, please keep them coming and tell people about this story. Very few readers like the Cam plot but I'm hoping that a non fluff fic with a healthy dose of angst will drum up some interest. I know that people are confused about what is going on with her, but please believe I have a very clear idea and once you read it all will be like OOHHHHHH. Lol. **

* * *

Cam was wearing all black. But no one had noticed since she often wore such outfits; yet she felt her heart scored slightly that the significance of the day slipped by without a ripple in the lab. She concentrated instead on her computer screen as a message popped up from Hodgins' lab station. Sighing, she reluctantly stood from her chair and swayed. She clutched her fingers to the tabletop, getting another predictable dizzy spell. She should probably discreetly google some medication for her depression because this was getting ridiculous. She accidentally knocked an empty box to the floor with a clatter and sighed. The box was an empty two-tiered truffle box. Her day had been hard enough, so she had stopped by a choclatier on the way to work to indulge, as she did once a year, in gluttony. Fastidious about her weight, Cam usually, with a smile, gave the truffles out to the interns and her colleagues, claiming the box was a gift. This year, however, she had eaten the first truffle with relish; it had tasted better than she had ever remembered. Scowling, she had hid the box behind her tissues to reduce the temptation. Ten minutes later she found herself savoring another absently while reading lab reports. Now the carton lay empty –over twenty pieces of chocolate gone. She hadn't given a single one away.

Cam groaned seeing her figure in the reflecting windows as she strode towards the forensics platform. To her mortification she was wearing a black pantsuit instead of her usual skintight dresses; they had been fitting tighter than usual and finally today one refused to zip at all. Cam had stepped on the scale and given into a brief spat of tears, far away from Felicia. She had gained six and a half pounds. Seven, really, if she rounded up. That was almost ten pounds over her stable weight. Her usual lithe figure was sullied now; she had tried smoking to curb her insatiable appetite, but ironically, she had developed a taste aversion to her cigarettes in remembrance of her food poisoning and gagged. Even the smell of tobacco now made her nauseous. Cam was in a foul attitude as she dragged her now fat ass up the stairs, viciously swiping her key card to glare cruelly at the bones left for her. Great, there wasn't even anything in pathology for her to test.

"What?" she ground out through her teeth. Angela's eyebrows rose over her dark eyes in surprise. Cam was usually affable; the interns adored her. In reaction to Cam's unusual moody snap, Fisher backed up three steps.

"We were wondering if you could make out these marks here on the radius…" Fisher trailed off as Cam took a calming breath, trying not to snatch the bones from his fingertips.

"By all means," she smiled, but it felt twisted on her face. She tried to shake her noxious mood; they didn't know what day it was, after all, and so far no one had noticed – or at least said – anything about her weight gain. Cam swallowed and had just finished remarking on the likelihood that the victim was most probably a heroin addict when furious marching steps, doubling her own, clanged across the shiny lab platform.

"Guess what I got in the mail today?" screeched Felicia. Cam closed her eyes and felt a gentle pressure on her shoulder. To her surprise Fisher was squeezing her skin with sympathy, his eyes as heavy as her whole body felt. She just felt _off_.

_I'll go for a run after work_, she decided, avoiding the temptation to peek at everyone's expressions in response to Felicia's approach, which was still a ways off yet as she stormed up the stairs. _I'll only eat salad this week. I'll pull South Beach again. It shouldn't be hard; I'll run three miles every day. I'll get up at six like usual; I'll stop making excuses to get out of bed. Once Felicia leaves and all this blows over, I'll forget it again. Things will go back to normal. I'll just drink twice as much coffee, drink soda during the day and at night I'll do some aerobics. Hopefully within two weeks to a month I'll be back to normal physically. _She refused to think of the mental funk she had sunk into.

"Yes Felicia?" she asked, her voice calm again. Cam liked plans. They made her feel in control.

"I got a letter," her sister fumed, ignoring the security guard's feeble attempt to block her way to Cam. She chucked a single white carnation at Cam. Cam caught it before it could contaminate the table, and instead of glaring at her sister, gingerly handed it to Angela as she stood straighter, trying to conceal Felicia's embarrassing behavior in front of her friends.

"That usually happens in the mail," placated Cam, trying to blow the whole thing over with a flippant remark. Felicia's fury soured into bitterness.

"I've changed my mind. I'm leaving. I'll take a cab to the airport. I just came to bring you _this_," she flung an envelope on the table, still sealed. Her face contorted with…jealousy? Pain? "Don't worry," she scoffed, but her scoff sounded cracked. "I didn't read it."

"Felicia – what the –" Cam was snapping off her gloves and trying to follow her when the handwriting and the address caught her eye. She stumbled against the table and murmured a distracted thanks when Hodgins caught and steadied her arm. With shaking fingers, she ignored Felicia's flouncing back and the entrance of a UPS deliveryman.

_To: Silly Millie Saroyan_

_At Her Damn Impressive Job_

The third line was dated from the year he had died. The letter had instructions not to open it until twenty years from that year. In weaker, shakier, handwriting a specific date – the date of his death – had been added to one side. Cam knew it was at the point where Tony could hardly hold his own pen between rigidly locked fingers, and she guessed he had addressed the letter directly before going into his final surgery.

He had died on the table.

Cam never knew he had guessed it would happen; she had been blindsided.

With trembling skin rippled with goosebumps, Cam opened her letter from a brother dead twenty years.

_I can't believe you! You're so old! And so beautiful! And don't deny it either, despite your tomboy appearance now as you beg Dad for snacks from the vending machine outside my hospital room. Mom was always beautiful too._

Cam felt the tears flood her eyes and she hastily shoved the letter into a jacket pocket; she could not read it here with her soul on display like a Barney's New York window. Angela, she could see, looked concerned. She wordlessly offered the flower back but Cam was saved any explanation by the loud, brusque voice declaring a package for Camille Saroyan.

"You her?" asked the smelly mustached man as Cam raised a relieved hand into the air.

"Yes. I'm Dr. Saroyan."

"You go by 'Millie'?" Cam blinked at him.

"Excuse me? No. No. I think you must have the wrong person," she said smoothly. Inside, she felt her entire heart squeeze painfully, pumping too fast. The man simply grunted; Cam peered at the label. It looked normal enough; the man must have overheard Felicia or something such.

"What is it?" asked Hodgins, obviously trying to ameliorate the tension Felicia had left behind. The UPS man hoisted a relatively light, but long package onto an empty examining table.

"Sign here," he grunted, "and here." Cam nodded that Hodgins could open the package, glad to get back to work.

"Um Cam?" called Hodgins. Clipping her ID to her belt loop, Cam strode briskly over, wrapping her heart up and pushing it far away into the dark. The shivery feeling rippling under her skin was unnamed but not unusual; it was the same feeling that came when someone was cruel, or when there was severe criticism against her decisions. She often felt these sickening shivers, but pushed them down; she had to remain strong. She couldn't let people see how they affected her. That was how bullies won.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Who sent you these?" laughed Angela, reaching with both hands in the box. She retracted them, holding a set of polio crutches, the kinds with the cuffs that encircled the wrists. Cam felt her heart stop and then beat so loudly she was sure she was about to pass out with the sudden influx of blood to her brain. Everything inside of her that she had been repressing was suddenly clamoring four times too loud, creating chaos in what was usually order. She didn't cry, or gasp or scream. She didn't stumble or speak. She could only wonder what her face looked like, as she was trapped in silence, the things better left unsaid hanging between her ears and buzzing through her brain. She felt ice travel from beneath both earlobes inexorably down both arms and down her thighs until her very toes in her high heeled boots curled. She could only hold out a mute hand.

Angela passed her the crutches. There were odd markings on the sides. Cam turned them horizontally and squinted until her blurred vision, swimming with remnants of tears from a surprising letter, could make sense of the obvious sharpie marks into words. There were two smiley faces on both sides of the proclamation. One of the crutches was unmarked, the other simply said:

"I won't be needing these anymore!"

"I…" started Cam. Her shivery feeling was eating her up inside. There were no butterflies in her stomach; there were thousands beneath her skin, chilling it and rippling it until she had thrills of cold running down her arms.

"Please excuse me," she gasped. Her loud brain suddenly became so quiet she could have heard a pin drop. She blinked and she was in the lab's garage. She blinked and she was pulling into her own driveway. She blinked, the gaps of time cut from the mind like swathes of useless fabric, and suddenly she was driving and it wasn't her car. She was in Michelle's car; it got better gas mileage. She blinked, and she finally woke as she crossed the borders into New York. She looked at the clock. It was already five pm. She had no idea when she had left the lab.

With a shuddery sob, she saw the crutches were positioned on the front seat and with a decisive push she stabbed the radio on. The immediate blare of sound from Michelle's habit to listen to rap too loud for her eardrums drown out Cam's ability to even feel. Instead of her knee jerk reaction to swat the volume lower, Cam let the beat shudder through her, ripping her apart inside, and finally let the screaming tears fall. She couldn't even hear herself sob over the heavy rhythm her heart quickly adjusted to, and the cathartic release finally ebbed that gnawing empty sorrow that had been culminating around her heart and stomach for so long. It was true, what they said. That emotions could wreak havoc on the nervous system.

She carefully parked the car into one of the dozens of empty slots in the graveyard and walked relatively calmly up to the information kiosk. She swallowed her guilt as she clearly enunciated the name he was buried under. She hadn't been to his grave in what…eight or nine _years_? Even before she had left New York, she had avoided seeing it. The droll little man, bored out of his mind behind a green visor spent too long explaining a map to her just to have someone to talk to. She thanked him crisply and returned to the car to drive the little meandering path.

It was almost too easy to find his gravestone; it was next to a large marble bench their father had erected so that the family could "sit with him." Cam, her breath caught, scrambled from the car with a sudden urgency before she leaned both crutches against his tomb and pushed all her newfound weight on the tops, staking them into the soft earth next to the headstone. They poked out of the tall grass cockily, and she realized the tears on her face hadn't quite dried knowing he no longer had to walk with those hated things a moment longer.

She collapsed onto the bench; it was darker now, the twilight of the day swirling around her face. She pulled her swollen feet out of her tight shoes. _Really_? She fumed_, even my ankles are too fat now?_ Ignoring her momentary and vain lapse of sincerity, she tucked her body up onto the cold bench, seeing the first stars begin to reflect in its black marble surface as she stared at her pink toes, the nail polish chipped but still cheery and juxtaposing the harsh corners of the sable marble. She unfolded the letter and noticed dimly that the white paper was yellowed. The back of the envelope had been marked by the post office VOID and it seemed some kind soul had endeavored that she would get her brother's letter. She almost cried again at the random act of kindness of a stranger.

She read the salutation this time.

_Dear Lil' Miss Sillie Millie, _

_I can't believe you! You're so old! And so beautiful! And don't deny it either, despite your tomboy appearance now as you beg Dad for snacks from the vending machine outside my hospital room. Mom was always beautiful too._

_I expect you know how these letters go by now. I wrote them over my stay in the hospital. I wrote some to Felicia as well, but of course not so many, nor so frequent as I've been writing to you. _

Cam stopped, thrown. This wasn't the first letter of its kind. Where then, were the others? Had the post office simply thrown them into the dead letter office? She absently made a note to track them down as her eyes voraciously tore through the page, hungering to know more about a man who never existed outside his boyish, broken form.

_So this is year twenty huh? Kinda spooky to realize, but I won't bore you with the dramatics of my "emotional turmoil."_

Cam smiled in spite of herself. Their mother always mocked their complaining as "intense emotional turmoil" though she rarely did so to Felicia, having a soft spot for a girl like her. _Use your words not your fists_, Cam remembered their mother berating them often, when she or Tony was too furious to speak and could only scream incoherent fits of frustration at one another.

_I guess then I should use my words huh sis?_

Cam swallowed to realize even after all this time, how similarly Tony and she thought.

_Anyways. I hope you got the crutches too. I wanted to paint them up something real pretty, but the hospital gift shop (the only place I could hobble far enough in this wreck of a body at 2 am) didn't have anything. Plus, I figured it might upset you. Do these letters upset you? I don't mean for them to. I just thought you'd like hearing from me every couple of years, especially on the major markers. _

_Do you even still think of me? Or remember the day I…_

_Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I'll just pretend you do, for my sake. It'll be my last little selfish wish because I'm pretty sure these letters are more for me than for you_.

Cam realized she was holding a hand over her mouth, trying to cram her tears back inside before noticing she was no longer in DC; she was literally in a different state. There was no way she would be overheard by anyone. She let the sobs she had been shielding from Felicia slither out of her in waves. Her grieving was more personal: done in the car and by herself. She glanced out of the corner of her eye to the grassy plot over the headstone.

"They aren't more for you," she told him. "They're for me. They mean more than you could…" her breath hitched. She instead turned her burning gaze away from the short dates on the engraved marble back to the shaky ink handwriting. His stream of consciousness was that of the teenager he would always be: sweet and all over the place.

_Well, I guess I just wanted to say…well I want to say so much. I want to be your big brother and offer you all this great advice about being an adult. But truth be told, I haven't been there for you for twenty years. I don't know what to say to you about your first crush, or that first failed test, or getting your first job, or starting your first house... And if I know you, it's eaten you all up inside and you haven't told anyone. Or if you had, it went really south so you covered me up again. I see how you look at me, out of those huge solemn eyes, too old to be twelve. _

_Camille. _

Cam realized she couldn't finish the letter and instead wrapped her arms around her legs and cried. She pretended it was Tony that was hugging her, finally so close to him after so many years. He was right, damn him. He always was.

_Go tell someone. I'm not a secret. I would hope you wouldn't be ashamed of me._

"I'm not ashamed," she whispered, the words sliding out as if they were having a real conversation.

_I would hope that you wouldn't be ashamed of being the victim. Those scars you think you have all over your soul – those aren't signs that you almost died. Those are signs you survived. _

_And it's kind of damn selfish to keep experience like that away from people who could benefit from it. You could be saving another you, or another kid like you, or hell, another adult like you are now, a lot of the grief you undoubtedly went through. The tears I couldn't wipe away. _

_And I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry I didn't survive and you did. I'm sorry for dying. _

_You probably hate me. _

_Hell, I'd hate me. _

Cam shivered, her eyes scrunched in a bawling position, but her tears all leaked out. Her eyelashes burned against her cheeks as she vehemently shook her head, words not enough to try to tell him, twenty years too late, that she didn't hate him. That she loved him. Uncannily, his letter echoed her heart.

_I love you_. _I hope you're amazing. I hope you have a family by now; crazy to think you might have kids. Or be pregnant. Or be married. Or even be dating! All of that is foreign to me. You hate boys currently (other than me.) You tell me seriously that only the creepers follow you. _

Cam switched from crying to laughing, remembering all too well that that was indeed how it had seemed.

_Just remember that if I could have….I would have. I would have been there for you, and picked you up, and dusted you off. I just wasn't strong enough. _

_Just…think of me when you run_.

Cam hiccupped. The letter had ended with his familiar scrawl of "Tony" illegibly crowding the bottom. His parting remark had been directed at the fact they had often raced each other from the tree house to the rusty car, and as she grew, around the neighborhood. She realized now he had been training her to keep her out of danger. She was such a tiny, scrappy little thing it had been futile to try and teach her more than the modicum of self-defense. Her true power lay in her long legs and swift stride, to keep her out of harms reach in the slums of the Bronx.

Cam pillowed her jacket under her head as she stretched out against the marble bench. She would never be able to work out without dissolving into tears now. She laughed bitterly to herself that she might as well try to get gloriously fat. She craved chocolate and a fire; October was chilly at night. She would get up any minute now and get into Michelle's car. She'd arrive late at home, and claim she had needed the vehicle for a coroner's run out to New Jersey or some such thing.

Right as she resolved this, a blinking little light blipped by her face. She jumped a mile. Another, and another appeared, like stars wavering before her vision. For one insane moment, she cast a glance at the gravestone beside her. She laughed breathlessly when she realized what they truly were: fireflies.

She watched them lazily circle, drawing light shows in the air for no one but their own pleasure and her singular audience until all the lights went out.


	6. A Big Fish in A Big Pond

**This is twice as long as usual, but I didn't feel like making it 2 chapters. It was time to hurry Cam home to the Squints. Review as always!**

* * *

Booth tossed his keys up cockily and snatched them palm down out of the air. He grinned foolishly, still glowing from the very satisfying go-round with Hannah before work. Correction: several go-rounds. Rather than feeling tired, he felt invigorated, _manly. _He basically felt like a superstar.

He hummed to himself in the elevator, gloating but at the same time ignoring the slightly nagging nostalgia that Bones wasn't there to reprimand his irritating habit. She hated when he hummed. He had never told her he knew what a good voice she had; he would kill something to hear it again. Last time he had been interrupted. He had gotten shot. Unfortunately. Brennan, terrified by the event, had never once opened her mouth again. He knew she never sang now; the closest she had come was the half singing, half shouting of their rendition of "hot blooded." He grinned; that had been epic. That scored his heart especially when he heard Hannah belting show tunes in the shower. He would never admit it, but when Hannah tried to wheedle him into a duet, he laughed hysterically. Like he would ever sing a duet. He knew that if Brennan had asked, they would have recreated the best goddamn Broadway musical ever.

Ignoring his thoughts, he did a quick little jazz hands about face before exiting the elevator, jingling his keys in readiness to unlock his office. He felt his pocket buzz and his niggling feeling of nostalgia – which scared him since he saw Brennan every day, but still ached for what they had, or almost had – knowing that Hannah had just texted him a very vociferous thank you for the morning.

He coughed into his cup of coffee at seeing who was turning in the chair across from his desk.

* * *

"Michelle!" He looked surprised to see her, and Michelle felt the flooding shame she knew burned her cheeks when every single agent in the building stared at her, their rude gazes seeming to beg the question why she wasn't at school. She stood to hug him clumsily.

"Hi Uncle Booth." She was proud of herself; she only stumbled slightly over the appellation.

"Is everything okay? Are you all right?" His fired questions as he smoothed his tie as he sank into his chair. She was embarrassed. Her eyes had filled with tears of their own accord.

"It's Cam," she swallowed at the sudden concern and outright fright on his face. "She didn't come home last night."

The floor shook as her "uncle" sprang to his feet.

"WHAT?" Michelle nodded and realized her voice was garbled with tears as more spilled unheeded over her cheeks.

"My car…my car is gone. And she…she didn't leave a note. I…" But Booth was there, gathering her into his arms and she realized that although she was striving so hard to be an adult- she was seventeen after all- she was shaking like a leaf. She sobbed into his lapels feeling the hard masculine chest and the musky scent of him. She missed her dad. _So much_. So much so, she could hardly speak of him to Cam at all.

"I'm so scared," she wept. "I'm so scared. My car…she would never…she didn't say anything? I don't know what to do. I didn't know where to go. And the police don't _do_ anything." She knew her voice was bitter now. They had handed her father's case over like it was no big deal. Like it wasn't someone's life.

She supposed it didn't matter to them. It was only her life.

"Okay, okay," murmured Booth, and Michelle drew back, suddenly furious and cautious at the same time. She pushed tears out from under her eyes with the back of a fist. She crossed her arms hard across her chest, balling her hands up under her warm armpits. Her North Face was still in the back seat of her missing car.

"This isn't really my jurisdiction," mused Booth, leaning on his knuckles on the desk. Michelle felt her bones liquefy as hope flew out of her like a breath knocked away. "This should go to missing persons."

"Only if it's been 24 hours," interrupted Michelle, a little hope creeping back in. "Please Uncle Booth, you have to help." His faraway gaze sharpened, startled.

"Of course I'm going to help," he grated out. He looked offended she had suspected otherwise. "But you weren't the last person to see her were you? When did you see her?"

"A couple of days ago," gulped Michelle. She didn't let Booth interject as she hurried through the explanation. "Aunt Felicia was in town. I never get anything done when Aunt Felicia is around," Booth cracked a wry grin out of the corner of her eye as Michelle glared at her shaking fingers. She laced them together to hide them. "So I've been living with my friend Bekah for a couple days. Two nights. Three days. I came home last night and Cam wasn't there. But I wasn't worried. But then my car was gone…"

"Why didn't you call anyone last night?" interrupted Booth.

"I thought she had taken it to get gas," said Michelle, her eyes honest. "Cam's always doing little things like that. She thinks people don't notice."

"I guess some of them don't." Michelle noticed his face spasmed with something she couldn't put a finger on. Was it guilt?

"When did you start to worry?"

"Well, I got home late. At nine. But I'd been texting her where I was, just like she always makes me. But I was at the library, getting together for a final presentation that's due today." She briefly flashed on how furious her group would be with her not there. Fuck them. Cam wasn't her parent, but she was damn near close. And she wasn't about to lose a third parent. Three would be intolerable.

"Okay. So when did you get scared?"

"Like…" Michelle nibbled on her lip. "I guess about 11 or so? I ended up just going to bed. Sometimes she has to go identify bodies for doctor friends as a favor. Or do an autopsy."

"Really?" Booth looked surprised. "I didn't know that."

"She has a lot of friends in New York and other places. They travel to DC and want her opinion. She's the best." Michelle knew her voice had taken on the bragging tone most parents took about children, and not the other way around.

"You're right. Cam's not like that. It's really unlike her not to call. Which means…" He trailed off. Michelle didn't beat around the bush.

"Which means she actually missing, and not irresponsible."

"We need to talk to the people who saw her last."

"Well, did she go to work yesterday?" asked Michelle. "She's been feeling really sick lately."

"I…don't know," Booth conceded with some embarrassment. Michelle didn't know much; Cam didn't confide in her as a friend, but she knew that Cam had been mentioning Uncle Booth less and less frequently since he had come home with Hannah. She also knew how depressed Cam had become when the whole lab had left. Cam had been strong and falsely cheerful around her and Michelle knew Cam always wanted her to have a great of a home life as she could give her. She never let her personal life interfere with Michelle. Or was Michelle her personal life? She felt that as close she had become to Cam, there was always a gap between them that twelve years apart could not heal.

"Well haven't you seen her?" Michelle demanded belligerently. She felt that if Cam could not snap at Booth, she might as well do it for her.

"I actually haven't," he admitted shamefacedly.

"Why?" asked Michelle bluntly. "It killed her when you all left. And she's a wreck. And after Felicia…" Michelle, angry, felt her eyes fill and spill once more. "And now she's missing."

"Hey," said Booth with a rumble that made her sob because it sounded so much like her dad. Cam obviously had similar taste. "Hey." He was hugging her again as she cried. "Let's go to the lab. We'll find her."

* * *

"Oh holy _fuck_," screeched Cam, staring at the screen of her phone. She glanced over at the grave beside her and didn't apologize. Tony had cursed like a sailor. She blinked around and sprinted for her car, rifling through her purse. She tripped, predictably, and fell. Her heels were mired up to the hilt in soft earth from the sprinklers that had just gone off in her face.

She was wet, cold and really late. Like fucked over late. Like _Oh God, poor Michelle._ She turned on her phone frantically. There was no signal.

Of course not.

She jammed the keys into the ignition, knowing she was leaving grass stains on the leather. She wrestled out of her stupid blazer, now soaked. She blasted the heat, although it was a mild sixty degrees outside. She had fallen asleep on a marble bench; she was freezing.

"No, no, no," she moaned. Michelle's dash said that it was 8:30. The drive was at _least_ two hours.

The radio blasted a wall of sound that had Cam screeching a donut through the parking lot in surprise. It was so loud it felt like her eyeballs were going to vibrate out of her skull. She couldn't believe she had listened to that. Sobbed to that. She swiped at the volume. For the second before the numbers went down, she noticed it was at "MAX." She must have been a terror driving. She was sure she had pissed everyone around her off. It hadn't seemed important at the time.

"This cannot be happening," she whimpered feverishly, as she floored the gas on the highway. She zipped around cars that were going seventy like they were sitting still. They fell behind her like dying flies.

She was from New York; she knew how to drive like nobody else.

She flipped her cell open. She tried to call Michelle first. With a cry of surprise, she watched idly as the cell was flung out of her hand into the backseat as she wrapped both hands involuntarily around the steering wheel. It was all a matter of seconds as she wrenched her car around the near brush with death.

"Well fuck," she fumed. She was fine, and furious. Now her cell was lodged somewhere under the back seat and she wasn't about to pull of the highway and spend ten minutes finding a parking lot and digging it back out. She would simply apologize when she got there.

But what on earth would she say?

_I need a huge distraction. An alibi. _As if telling the truth was so bad. But it was.

Some days she just wanted to cry long and hard, but she was afraid someone might actually hear her and ask what was wrong. It was, in essence, her deepest fear.

"Oh God." Cam knew she had said the words aloud, and though she wasn't a very good Christian – Booth put her to shame – she involuntarily crossed herself though she wasn't Catholic.

While she had been driving, she had noticed there was a swerving black Honda in front of her; she had been pensively wondering if she should pass it, but it kept speeding up and slowing down. In a move that had Cam gasping the oxygen from the air, the black Honda merged into an adjacent lane. The silver car there slammed on its brakes and swerved around it. It got away safely, but completely surprised the driver behind the silver sedan. A hunter green jeep smashed into the now filled space of the back of the Honda, going an easy seventy or eighty. The collision spun the back of the Honda so forcefully it flipped, rolling across three lanes of traffic. The jeep skidded the opposite direction, but didn't flip; it instead collided with the cement partition and skidded to a halt. Cam could even see the jerking figure of an unconscious person smashing into the airbags.

She pressed her brake to the floor, and was surprised to find that Michelle's little SUV Toyota had anti lock and ground to a safe stop on the shoulder of the highway. Without thinking, Cam was flinging herself from the car, looking both ways, and dashing across the street to the smoking, crumpled Honda.

"Oh God. Oh God. Oh God." She realized she was stammering a mantra beneath her breath as she dodged around cars now going 20, staring at the accident. Cam viciously poked her finger at a wide-eyed driver and put her own fist to her ear, miming calling 911. The driver nodded furiously as he drove away, cell to his ear.

She had always been swift and athletic; she saw that the boy inside, no older than Michelle, was still unconscious, strapped hanging upside down. The airbag was pressed to his cheek; the seat belt had cut into his neck as it dripped blood onto his own eyebrow.

Cursing, Cam realized she had no way of cutting the boy out of the car. She glanced around and saw a large shard of glass twisted with metal – not safety glass from his crumpled windows – this looked like the cracked screen of a demolished laptop. Seizing it, Cam ferociously began to slash at the seat belt, and puncture the orange plastic with the same consistency of a basketball and just as rough, just as the boy came awake. His dazed eyes looked around and Cam looked at him seriously.

"My name is Dr. Camille Saroyan. You've been in a car accident. You're upside down. We need to get you out of the car."

"What?" He looked dazed, and completely bewildered. His sluggish brain worked for a couple of seconds as she pushed the airbag viciously in on itself, watching the air inside ruffling his bangs next to his face which was burned with rug burn from the bags.

"Camille?" His voice was thick, distorted. She looked at him but kept working.

"Yes?"

"Why can't I move my arms?" His voice was distressed as he futilely tried to push against the airbag and unbuckle his seatbelt. Cam was busy sawing through it, cursing the uselessness of the laptop shard she could feel cutting into her own flesh.

"You've been in an accident. Do you know your name?" she kept her voice calm.

"Brad."

"Okay, Brad, do you have a knife in the car? A pocket knife or a letter opener?" He thought hard for a moment. He had golden, loosely curled hair and light green eyes; he looked like an angel. A battered angel.

"Yeah," he said slowly. "In my pocket."

"Brad, I'm going to reach in your pocket and take it out okay?" He nodded numbly, his fingers still trying to unbuckle his seatbelt. Holding her breath, Cam wedged her fingers into his tight jeans pocket. She worked them deeper, feeling perverted as she groped before touching the handle of something metallic. She wrenched at it, panting, scared, the adrenaline making her shake. She withdrew it inch by inch, pinched between the ends of her fingers.

She flipped it open and with one sweep, sliced through the belt in two places. Brad, his halo of floating hair hanging around his face, grunted as he fell towards the ceiling of his crumpled car. Cam had anticipated this and helped ease his fall with one arm. It was her turn to grunt as his full weight hit her. She dragged him from the car, to the applause somewhere behind her ears and to the side of the car where she laid him down. His legs never seemed to end; he had to be far over six feet.

"Jesus Brad, how tall are you?" A doofy grin spread across his face as he stared at the sky, and she knelt, beginning to examine his head, which had a huge lump on it.

"Six seven."

"Wow," murmured Cam, "play any sports?" she wasn't listening for his answer, but rather for the siren of the ambulance she heard coming.

"Do your legs hurt?"

"One of them really hurts," said Brad dreamily, as if just realizing it.

"That car is a little cramped for someone like you," smiled Cam, trying not to alarm the kid.

"It was my sisters but she went to college."

"Are you in high school Brad?" Cam knew he had to be, but wanted to keep him talking.

"Uh-huh."

"What grade are you in?"

"Eleventh grade."

"Really? I have a daughter who's a senior."

"I don't wanna be a senior," he slurred. She looked sharply up to see his eyelids fluttering shut.

"Why not Brad?" She asked urgently, not shaking him, knowing that he had at least three broken ribs, a broken leg and severe whiplash and a concussion. He was very lucky; it was a miracle he was alive.

"What about –" she noticed he wasn't answering. She tried frantically to remember what he had said as she heard ambulance doors slam as the boots of the EMTS charged across the road towards her. "What about polo? You said you play polo?"

"Uh huh. Cuz I'm so tall." It was hard to understand his words. Cam despaired for a moment; she didn't know anything about polo.

"What position do you play?"

"Sweeper."

"What's the name of your horse?"

"Huh?" he was suddenly confused with the dropping of four sets of knees and the sudden flash of lights as the EMT's asked his name and Cam spoke loudly over all of them.

"I'm Dr. Camille Saroyan. I witnessed the accident. Patient has at least three broken ribs, a cracked left femur and a major concussion. Not to mention the various contusions all over his sternum."

"You a doctor?" grunted an older EMT. Cam gave him an icy glare.

"Yes."

"Lucky him," said a young woman.

"How'd he get out of the car?"

"I had to cut him out."

"That was dangerous." The older man looked up to receive three sets of glares from his colleagues. "But…" he added grudgingly, "well done."

"Brad," called Cam.

"You're Camille," he slurred. She nodded. He grinned goofily again. "You're pretty."

"Brad tell me about your horse." She walked with him as he was lifted onto the stretcher and climbed into the back of the ambulance without a thought.

"Don't leave," he whimpered; he was just a kid. Seventeen by his driver's license. He was wringing the O negative out of her hand.

"Okay," she promised, realizing she was going to be hellishly late anyway, and might as well have a valid excuse. Here was a reason why she was delayed that didn't have to do with herself. Cam felt a sudden surge of guilt; did her wishing so hard trigger some cosmic fate? Was this her fault?

The ambulance doors slammed and Cam was surprised to realize that they were pulling up, ten minutes later, to a hospital in DC. She hadn't realized her musing and frenetic driving had gotten her so far.

By the time they were running through the ER with the stretcher, Cam was dead on her feet and her hand wrenched from a crying boy. He was a tall teenager, but he was still sobbing just the same.

"Are you his…" the doctor's professional voice trailed off as he looked up from his clipboard at Cam. He gave a crooked grin and turned his chin sharply 45 degrees to the right with a jaunty tilt of appreciation.

"I found him, and no, we aren't related." She cleared her throat, crossing her arms across suddenly cold breasts; she realized her thin lace bra was acceptable underneath her blazer, but not without it. She was only wearing a white silk camisole, now stained with blood and charred metal streaks. Her hair was tumbled around her face, but at least her black dress pants and boots were still in place.

"You're the one who cut the kid from the car that was upside down?" His voice escalated in pitch to match his arched eyebrows.

"Yes," said Cam defensively, tightening her grip on her arms before wincing, and with a quick glance down at the finger bruises of holding herself together.

"But you're…you're…" faltered the doctor. He was averagely tall. Around six feet, maybe an inch shorter. He had a shock of closely cropped dark hair – not quite black, and startlingly grey eyes. They were almost silver as they stared at her in amazement. She jutted her chin out.

"I'm what?"

"You're so tiny!" he finished. Cam felt her short temper flare up. She was very tired. Hell she was _exhausted_. Yesterday had been one of the most emotionally trying days of her _life_; she had just rescued a giant from a car accident and was about to lose her job with friends that had no idea what was happening. She seethed.

"Thank you, Doctor…" she trialed off while she purposefully stood on her tiptoes to squint at his badge. "Dr. Hart. Yes. Thank you. I wasn't aware. You know, in fact, I'm thrilled to be here. I'm not running on a couple hours of sleep for the sixth day in a row, I'm not furious with my sister or knowledgeable that I have to clean up the mess I've made out of my work life in the past couple of days. You know, in fact, I'm _thrilled_ to be standing her, dirty and grimy, looking at that smirk on your face I-" Cam cut herself off. She had lost it. Her cool.

Instead of being as offended or shocked as she would have expected, Dr. Hart was grinning wolfishly, crossing his arms in opposition to her wild gesticulations and watching her.

"Well angel," his endearment was savory and almost film noir. He was laughing at her. Cam flushed like a roman candle. "You're a fireball too. Big things in little packages and all." He had drawled into a Boston brogue that had Cam's hairs bristling on her forearms.

"Jesus fucking Christ, you're impossible." She took a calming breath, folded her arms tightly and stood rigidly erect. "Excuse me. I'm usually not this unprofessional. I found Brad – er, I have no idea what his last name was – he was weaving…I thought he was drunk or text-" She stopped.

"Are you going to write this down?" she snapped. He had been carefully watching her distant eyed face as she reported.

"Hold that thought," he held up a finger and took two steps to the left and snagged a trashcan from beneath the nurse's station.

"Excuse me?"

"Here."

"What is this-" Cam, at first affronted, suddenly felt another wave of terrifying nausea sweep her, literally shaking her frame as she wrapped her arms around the trashcan, clutching it involuntarily as she dry heaved. She dropped to her knees at the feet of the smug, good-looking doctor that made her furious. She wanted to die.

"I hate my life," she whimpered.

"Hung over?" came a voice not two inches from her ear. Cam jumped forcibly, and cracked her temple against his.

"Ouch!" he cried, falling away. Cam groaned, holding her head.

"I'm not hung over," she panted, staggering to her feet. Her vomiting had not brought up anything; she hadn't eaten in quite some time.

"Shock." His calm response, although there was a swelling bruise next to his left eyebrow, made her try to storm away. "Oh no you don't," he said, grabbing her arm. For one, fleeting instance, Cam imagined swinging her entire five foot three frame around and socking him in the teeth with all the fury she kept pent up. He seemed to guess her thoughts, for he immediately released her wrist as if it had turned into a live snake.

"Look. No offense, but you don't look so hot. I'm supposed to keep an eye on you. Most rescuers go into shock."

"Well I don't," she said mulishly. She was trembling violently, the usual ripples under her skin making her shiver and pressing goose bumps into her skin.

"Yeah? Well you're shaking like a leaf. Come on doll, let's sit over here."

"What are you, a dick?" There was a silence between them as he halted, staring in shock at her words that she mumbled as he led her to the chairs. Cam burned. She had meant a private detective; the slang had just slipped out from reading too many detective fiction novels from the forties and his clichéd endearments.

"Well I have one, does that make you feel any better?" Cam shoved feebly at him, feeling so fatigued that her dizzy spells were coming back harsher than ever. "You want something – coffee maybe?"

"Not from a hospital; I've worked in them too. Why do you think Starbucks is so rich?" she ground out from between clenched teeth. She glared at the orange chair cushions across from her until its pattern stopped swimming.

"You're a doctor?" he seemed even more amused by this idea.

"A coroner."

"Just a coroner?"

"A _federal_ coroner," she forced between her teeth, irritated with him suddenly being so nice to her. It had been easier to handle when he was laughing at her.

"You still work in a hospital?"

"No. I'm a pathologist."

"Oh," laughed the doctor beside her. "A big gun." She just realized that his hands were smoothing her hair, taking her pulse and feeling her face. She irritably swatted him away.

"I had a big gun once. I worked Bronx homicide before I decided to haul my ass into medical school." She glowered furiously, more angry at herself for giving into something so weak as shock.

"A detective _and _a doctor _and _now a big shot pathologist? Whew girl, where do you work?"

"The Jeffersonian." His probing stopped.

"No shit?" She grinned.

"No shit." She groaned and he wordlessly held the trashcan out to her. She dry heaved some more.

"Not a wor-" she didn't get to finish her threat as another shaking, sweating bout of dizziness took her.

"Not in shock eh?" he grinned cheekily. Cam was too exhausted and clammy to care anymore. That lack of response seemed to worry him more than anything else. He snapped fingers at a nurse and murmured words about crackers or something.

"I should not be in shock." She gritted her teeth as she spoke. Dr. Hart was glancing seriously at her, pressing crackers into her hands. She fiendishly ripped open the package of crackers and crammed them into her mouth, knowing the salt and sugar would help elevate her low blood sugar. "I'm a cop. And I stare at dead people every day. This should not be happening." She paused in her rant to swallow some water and eat some more crackers. "I'm _so_ late for work. My daughter is going to –"

"You have a daughter? How old?"

"Seventeen," mumbled Cam around crackers. She caught the polite silence edging up the corners of his eyes, drawing his own conclusions about her teenage exploits, and she rolled her own. "Foster daughter," she amended with a sigh. "I took her car. She's probably worried sick by now."

"I could call her for you…"

"I don't know her number. Cell phones…ugh," she groaned. "And my car is back at the wreck site."

"If you have to go right now," he was being practical, grave now without any of the teasing lingo or swarthy accent. "There are cabs out front. We'll have someone bring your car in. You can come get it from the doctor's garage."

"That would be amazing," she sighed. "And even though I look a mess, if I know my coworkers, they probably think I've been kidnapped. I haven't been in all morning and my phone is in my car."

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Cam looked suddenly at his face. He was being charmingly polite. She realized very suddenly, that she looked a _mess_. She was ashy, pale and had vomited in front of him twice, not to mention sunk to a miserable sniveling heap at his feet. What's more, she was positive her clothing was _not_ appropriate and she had been unbearably rude.

"No," she said breathlessly. "I'm so sorry I snapped at you that I-"

"You were in shock. You saved a boy's life. You're excused for being exceptional." Cam self consciously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She winced; it was so greasy she could have soaked French fries into it.

"Well…" she drew out reluctantly. "There is one thing…"

"Doll I thought you'd never ask." She looked up, startled to find his laughing grey eyes scrunched in teasing. She was flat out confused.

"Huh?"

"You weren't going to ask me out?" his voice was still joking, but this time surprised. He wasn't hurt yet, and Cam couldn't control her big mouth. She was surviving on absolutely no sleep.

"No! And I mean…Oh God, I meant why would you want to go out with…You know what, forget that. I was just going to ask if you could call my boss – er colleague – whatever, after I get a head start to help verify my story." He had been having too much fun watching her change colors as she stumbled over his invitation that he had tactfully not asked. He frowned suddenly.

"Why wouldn't they believe you? You're only a couple hours late. It's not yet noon."

"I…" she winced. He inadvertently reached out and tilted her face towards him as if he were checking if her pupils were fixed or dilated. She flinched and he murmured a sorry, his hand dropping as if encased in cement. He raised his eyebrows in such a _cop_ manner that Cam sighed and gave in. "I didn't go home last night."

She expected him to ask where she had been so was surprised when he thoughtfully nodded his head.

"I see."

"Not like that," she amended, wincing and then grasping her temples between her hands. Her head was about to leak through her fingers, she was sure.

"I didn't say anything." Cam closed her eyes but still smoldered at the floor.

"You didn't have to."

"Okay, yeah, sure. Who should I ask for?"

"Dr. Temperance Brennan tell her that I-"

"You work with Dr. Temperance Brennan?"

"Yes, I know her very well."

"Jesus."

"What?"

"You really were downplaying how important you are."

"I'm not important." Cam's snort failed to come out of her nose, and instead of scathing or biting, the comment came out how she truly felt: defeated and vulnerable. He didn't say anything and neither did she.

"Better call you that cab," he finally sighed, pushing himself by the arms of his chair.

"Sorry about your-" she gestured towards his head. He laughed as he walked away.

"A momento, angel, I'll treasure it."

* * *

"Oh my God! Oh God! Cam! Cam!" Michelle hit her weakened frame like a bullet from a gun. She ricocheted backwards, her daughter frantically wrapping her arms around her and crushing the little, battered life out of her. Cam, for a moment, was woozy but then her true feelings of the day and previous caught up and she was hugging Michelle back so tightly, Michelle squeaked. They let go of each other simultaneously. Michelle was already crying; Cam could tell it wasn't the first time today.

"Why aren't you in school?" she managed to ask, before the rest of the Squints thundered up in a herd.

"How could I be in school? You took my car."

"Mine's in the garage."

"I know but…you didn't come home and I was so worried," Michelle gulped and Cam was spun on one heel as Booth coarsely grabbed her arm revolving her on the spot to crush her into one of his hugs.

Being enveloped into a Booth hug had a terrible impact on her dignity; Cam came perilously close to tears, dissolving then and there and confessing the whole sordid mess. It was only years of practice that kept her together.

"Where were you?" His hug was gentler than his voice, at any rate. He veritably barked at her, and she could tell by that alone he had been very worried.

Cam took a deep breath but before she could recite her rehersal, Angela said,

"What happened? You look awful!"

"I know but-"

"God is that blood on your shirt?" Hodgins was squinting at the hem of her shirt where it met her black pants. Feeling self conscious, Cam wrapped her arms in front of her stomach.

"What I'm trying to say is that –"

"Maybe she should sit down," observed Brennan to Booth. "She looks like she's shaking."

"Are you in shock?" Booth's questions were professional, and rhetorical, for her nevertheless ushered her to the couch, her scathing glare and feeble swats enough to at least let her walk there under her own power.

"I'm fine the accident-"

"Oh my God! You were in a car accident!" screamed Michelle, who latched herself to her again. "You could have been hurt! You could have – have –" she dissolved into tears as Cam absently hugged her, soothing her hair. She felt the same flash as she had with Felicia, though not as strongly. She wondered if she was comforting the right way. She felt incredibly self conscious under the gaze of her friends.

"I wasn't in a car accident," she said firmly, and the babble of voices shut off as effectively as a door slamming. Cam seized the lead while she had it.

"I was visiting a body yesterday." That much was true. "…In New York."

"I told you," Michelle said confidently to Booth, and Cam sagged, the lie over with and swallowed with not even a tenth of the difficulty she had expected.

"On my way home this morning-"

"But why didn't you call?" whined Michelle. Cam sighed.

"I'm sorry Michelle, but I was busy. By the time I thought of calling you, I was dead tired and I'm afraid I just fell into bed. I woke and there was no cell service. I _never_ expected to be late for work this morning. I overslept." Every part of her story was true; it just wasn't all true together.

"Why do you look like that?" demanded Angela.

"On my way home – I was on the highway and there was this boy. He was just…just a kid. Your age Michelle." To her embarrassment, Cam's voice was getting thicker with fear and tears. Brennan compassionately sank beside her and squeezed her arm while Hodgins paced and Booth stared at her face intensely. She refused to meet his gaze. He was too smart for his own good sometimes.

"He…oh…he was texting…merged too fast and got fishtailed by a green jeep. I don't know about the driver of the jeep – but they were all going at least seventy. Maybe more." Cam swallowed as Angela put a hand over her mouth. "The kid's Honda smashed into the divider and rolled across several lanes of traffic."

"Oh my God," it was Brennan this time. "Is he okay?"

"Yes, I think so," breathed Cam, hugging Michelle more tightly. "I ran out of my car…he was stuck…upside down." Cam realized she was trembling again. The shock was coming back, worse than before. She reflected briefly that the smug Dr. Hart's attitude had been better for her than their quiet and encouraging silence. It brought the tears too close to the surface.

"What did you do?" Booth's low, intense voice cut through the silence, cleaving it cleanly until it rent the air with a slipstream that connected just him and her. She stared at him with both eyes, unflinching.

"I cut him out. I had to drag him out. His name was Brad. He was…he was so tall."

"Wait _who_?" screeched Michelle, silent until then. "Don't tell me it was Brad Baker. Really tall right? Richer than rich and plays fancy sports? Blonde curly hair?"

"Yeah," frowned Cam. "Yeah the kid was six seven." Hodgins whistled in envy and appreciation.

"He goes to my school," said Michelle. "He's in my group project. He's a junior. He's really smart though."

"If you ever…" started Cam with a trembling voice, "text and drive, I swear to God Michelle I'll…I'll…" Cam burst into tears and hugged her daughter to her. "He was just…so young. It could have been you. It could have been you."

"Cam…" her voice was tiny. "Cam…you're crushing me…please get off – get off!" She pushed away and Cam smiled tremulously.

"I rode with him to the hospital. The car is still on the highway, I'm supposed to go pick it up from the hospital later."

"Maybe you should _stay_ at the hospital," insisted Angela. "Cam you look really, really awful, and I'm not trying to be mean."

"Are you still sick?" accused Michelle. Brennan frowned.

"You've been sick and still coming to work?" Cam tried to brush it off but Brennan's scowl darkened.

"You could have gotten others sick. That's rather irresponsible of you Cam." Cam felt her cheeks redden with anger and shame. She was right, but at the same time, didn't need to gloat.

"She's been sick for a _while_," emphasized Michelle. "Maybe a month. Or more."

"How sick?" asked Booth. Cam felt like she was invisible. They were talking about her as if she were a child, or simply not there. She slumped back against the couch cushions and murmured a thank you when Hodgins handed her a glass of water. She idly peeled off some crackers from Angela's hoard on the coffee table. She looked down at her distended stomach and felt sick. Like she needed to eat. She dumped her handful of carbs back onto the table. Gaining weight was just depressing.

"She's been throwing up some. And she gets really dizzy. And she keeps complaining about how hot it is." Michelle was listing her symptoms.

"That's because the air conditioning is broken Michelle," Cam said through gritted teeth. She had managed to convince them all of her health when she had fainted down some stairs; this should be no different.

"I'm fine. I had some bad shrimp-"

"Over a week ago," interrupted Hodgins. "Food poisoning lasts only about 24 hours. If you're still sick, you probably picked up a bug either from the shrimp – which is unlikely since we're all fine – or from something or someone else."

"It's just the flu," Cam said patiently. "I'm fine. It's flu season."

"I thought you got a flu shot," said Michelle petulantly.

"Sometimes you get sick from the vaccination," placated Cam; this was a perfect excuse. She was too mortified to tell them she was having some emotional flare ups.

"It's unlikely," interrupted Brennan. "If Cam had the flu, she lives in close quarters with Michelle, and interacts with all of us on a daily basis. If she did have the flu, one or more of us would be exhibiting like symptoms." She looked around, once again out smarting everyone in the room. She glared at Booth. "I feel fine," she added primly. Booth hastily assured the general room, though his eyes were for Brennan alone, that he too felt a-ok.

"But I still think we should get a doctor to look at Cam." His irritating statement seemed to have entranced everyone else and steamrolled any of Cam's attempts to blow her exhaustion over.

"Well one of us needs to drive Cam to the hospital to get her car anyway," said Angela practically. They all jumped as the mainline in Angela's office rang. She answered it. "Angela Montenegro. Oh. Yes, one moment please." She held the phone out.

"It's for you sweetie."

"Dr. Temperance Brennan. Who? Yes. Yes." Brennan's eyes were raking over Cam as she quietly listened. "Yes, she told us. And how is he?" she covered the mouth of the receiver and said, "This is Dr. Hart. He said that Brad should be fine, but you did an amazing job with that fractured femur. He could have bled out in the car being upside down."

"Oh my God," whimpered Michelle, grasping Cam's hand tightly with her fingers.

"Is my car there?" answered Cam steadily, determined to show everyone she was fine through her behavior.

"My car," pouted Michelle petulantly.

"It's there," nodded Brennan. "We'll be bringing Dr. Saroyan back. She's having some symptoms that have apparently been going on for some time. She declined to mention them." Her voice was as cool as glass, and as sharp. Cam felt her face burn again.

"She vomited? Twice? I see. Yes, well it would be- really? That would be wonderful. Yes, we'll be there. Goodbye."

"What?" asked Cam to Brennan who turned thoughtfully.

"Dr. Hart has agreed to see you if you come into the Emergency Room. He says he'll have a room ready."

"No!" Cam protested too quickly. "I mean…I'm sure he's very busy. I'd much rather if another –"

"I've heard of him," said Brennan mildly, "he's one of the best surgeons in the country. Strange he'd agree to see you as an outpatient. You must have made quite the impression."

Angela giggled and nudged Cam in the ribs.

"If he's the best, that's what we want," said Booth. "Let's go." He stood up straight and everyone else sprang up as well. They were all forming a phalanx, Michelle wringing the blood from one arm, Booth from the other, around Cam when Sweets walked in and immediately backed up.

"Whoa…what's going on?"

"We're taking Cam to the hospital," said Hodgins cheerfully.

"She saved a boy from a car accident," added Michelle.

"Which is why she looks so horrible," chirped Angela.

"She's also ill," Brennan reminded them severely.

"Oh, God, I hope it's nothing serious," exclaimed Sweets. "Are you all right Dr. Saroyan?" He fell into line with the rest of them as they marched her towards the car.

"Peachy," she grumbled. "I'm peachy."


	7. Need This Like A Hole In My Head

**To all of you who guessed, you may gloat by pressing the button that looks like "review." For all those of you who were completely shocked and surprised, you may exclaim upon it by clicking the button that looks like "review" and for all of you who didn't see it from the beginning but then slowly caught on as Cam did - you should definitely explain the moment you knew by scrolling over the button labelled "review." If you just liked it, please see above instructions.**

* * *

"It's nice to see you again," his words were courteous but his tone was not. He sounded smarmy and ingratiating to Cam. She pouted and leveled her glare at Angela who was grinning wider than a rainbow as Dr. Hart winked outrageously. At least Cam had gotten to change. She had begged Seeley to let her go home to put on new clothes, and everyone had reluctantly agreed. In fact only Michelle, and damnably Booth, had driven her home. Michelle had decided to stay behind to catch up on work. Cam promised to call her if anything was _actually_ wrong and telling Michelle in an undertone that the rest of the lab wouldn't be staying either. It was just a doctor's appointment, and the only person pig headed enough to hang around _her_ mood was Booth.

She didn't have on a dress; that would have been too obvious for her weight gain. Her body felt irritatingly bloated and cumbersome and she cursed this stupid emotional screw up with all her soul. She did, however, have on a pantsuit that was very slimming. It was all black again, just like yesterday, but this time it was without the significance. She had taken a quick shower too, so her hair was blown dry and smelled clean – like cotton and orchids, just as her shampoo promised. She had not spritzed herself with her rarely worn perfume. Too much practice in the lab (it wasn't good to be around Hodgins' bug room smelling like a rose…literally) going without scent had ingrained her into feeling strange when she did put it on.

"And you're…clean," Dr. Hart pronounced the word carefully, giving her body a long once over that had Cam more furious than flustered. There was some shuffling in her entourage. "And where did the circus come from?" he continued pleasantly, blinking at the no less than six people accompanying her to the ER.

"These are my co-workers," she ground out. Dr. Hart's face brightened and he scanned before pointing an accusatory finger towards Brennan.

"_You_ are the angel I talked to on the phone. Temperance Brennan. I recognize you from the scientific journal you write for." Brennan's face twisted a little in confusion into a half smile as an objection rose to her lips. Booth skulked up to loom behind her in the background. "Ok, ok," laughed Dr. Hart, throwing up his hands from the glare Booth shot his way, "Not an angel then."

"Hardly," said Brennan primly, which Cam actually laughed aloud at, a quick, short bark of surprise. She could tell Booth's clenched jaw was really lolling on the floor, lost in the gutter.

"And they are all…staying?" asked Dr. Hart, drawing her gently away, like peeling her carefully from a sticker sheet.

"No."

"Yes."

Cam gave a pointed glare at Booth. Dr. Hart's face suddenly narrowed as he did the same tilt at 45 degrees with his jaw. His brain was quick and he let go of Cam's jerked away elbow.

"I'm fine," she told them all with asperity. She marched away under her own power, letting Dr. Hart tag along if he so chose. He caught her before the swinging doors.

"Are you fine?" he asked under his breath, holding the doors open for her. "You are looking better than earlier…but your colleagues are very worried. Dr. Brennan said-"

"Yes, I know what she said," sighed Cam, her anger gone, leaving her depleted. "It's just the flu. Could we please, please just sit in a room for 20 minutes and let me go?" He gave her a dazzling smile. Both his bottom canine teeth were just the littlest bit crooked; it made her feel better. No one should be as ridiculously handsome as he was in a profession elbow deep in someone else's body. He should have been an actor. Or a model. Something to utilize his shallowness. Cam smirked to herself.

"Sure doll," he cheekily exclaimed. "This way. I'd love to sit and chat."

Cam, in relief, sunk into a chair. Dr. Hart tutted.

"Nope, gotta sit on the crinkly paper."

"Why?" she was just as mulish as he was, and his childish, debonair attitude was both charming and irritating.

"Well, they want to know that I examined you."

"The clothes stay on," she snapped at the same time. He looked at her, grey eyes wide with shock, before opening his mouth so wide she could see all of his teeth and laughed. He wiped a hand over his grinning mouth, smiling like…like…Cam hit on it, the ridiculously accurate animal quality he carried around: grinning and laughing like a goddamn coyote.

In response to her observations, he grinned wolfishly at her.

"That's fine darling, that's just fine. Let's just talk first before we jump the gun on our first date."

"This is not a date," she smiled placidly, adopting the tone she knew aggravated Booth beyond all reason. It was polite and rational. It was cautioning and patient, as if he were the one throwing a tantrum, instead of making _her_ feel like throwing one. He adopted his own like tone.

"All right then, that's fine. Be a gem will ya, and tell me how it all started." He slipped a little in the Boston brogue, it seemed, out of habit.

"Tell ya all about it?" mocked Cam. She reigned in her sarcasm and continued in her usual professional tone. She called up the voice she used when talking to her interns. Save Wendell. She ignored her thoughts about him, except a brief pang of regret that he had gotten caught between Hodgins and Angela. Stupid, stupid boy. And even worse with how Brennan had so callously thrown his entire life and livelihood away. "What would you like to know?"

His voice was as disinterested as hers as he picked up a clipboard and stated:

"Let's go through the forms. You didn't get to fill them out in the ER. You can fill out the insurance and whatnot later. Name?" Cam was about to make a scathing reply but realized in all probability, he didn't even _know_ her name. She didn't recall introducing herself more than once. Or was it even once? She cleared her throat; she realized even though she had made a point of looking at his badge, she didn't know his first name either.

"Camille Saroyan." She carefully spelled out her last name. His cheeky little grin crept up a corner of his coyote smile, his short bristled dark hair seeming to fall right into the theme. A reluctant, "what?" was torn from her lips.

"People come up with clever awful nicknames for you?"

"They just call me Cam."

"Mealy?" he suggested with a grin, "Cause there's not a lot on you." His accent slipped up again, and he seemed to recall that he was being restrictedly polite.

Cam didn't answer right away, just took a deep breath.

"Dr. Hart-"

"Call me Cole." Cam nodded.

"Why don't we just get this over with. I know what's wrong with me okay? I'm ill, but not diseased. Can we please be done?"

"I'll be quick," he winked until she caught up with his dirty mind. "But thorough," he murmured, looking at her chart. Before she could retort more than a full faced blush at his outrageously provocative comments, there was a knock on the door and Dr. Cole Hart turned, conversed softly with a nurse, took her medical record and spent a few silent minutes leaned up against a counter, reading through her history. Cam stared at the floor, feeling her ears burn. When he spoke, his voice was infinitely softer.

"Yeah, yeah…I'm sorry. Let's just get through this, like you said."

"Fine," she said calmly. She wanted to snap it out.

"Tell me about your symptoms." His sudden, detached and clinical voice crumpled her heart. He was speaking at her like he was a doctor and she was nothing more than a patient. In response, she let her gaze slide out of focus as she used to as a kid, implementing the selective blindness. With no focus, shapes were just blobs of color, moving around; she didn't have to stare at his reactions out of the corner of her eye.

"A couple days ago, I went to a clam bake and had some bad shrimp. I was retching all night. But after that, I felt some nausea, fatigue, aches and pains, headaches – general flu like symptoms."

"That's all?" Cam smiled a half little smile as she shook her head, eyes still unfocused so she didn't have to see him.

"That's all."

"Ok, well we'll draw some blood, run some tests. If it's as you say, I'll just prescribe you an antibiotic and you'll be on your way."

"Thank you."

"Can I-" he hesitated, and her gaze came sharply back into focus, staring at his fingers, stuck between the pages of her medical folder. "Can I ask about your family history?"

"Medical history?" she asked, her voice still clinical. Her face, she could feel, was not. His own polite voice dropped away; he could tell it hurt her as much as she knew hers hurt the others.

"Of course," he said. She nodded heavily.

"Sure."

"Your mother is passed."

"Yes." She refused to point out that wasn't a question.

"She died of…"

"They tell us it was an anuryesim."

"Did she fall?"

"I don't know. We think it was the stress."

"Living through the loss of one child is very-"

"Is there a _point_ to these questions?" snapped Cam. He stopped. He looked not smug but sober, still retaining the sharp coyote instincts. His ears might as well have stood up on his head with interest. He basically said aloud that he realized he had stumbled on a touchy subject.

"No," he finally sighed. "There's not a point."

"I'm-" she bit off sorry. She wasn't sorry.

"I'll get a nurse in here for your blood work and be back in about half an hour."

"That's fine."

"I'll put a rush on the order to make sure you can get out of here."

"Thank you."

"You still up for that dinner?" his sudden change in tone had her cracking a reluctant smile.

"You don't want to be with me," she laughed lightly, making a joke out of her true pain.

"I don't know you," he said honestly.

"Don't worry about it," she shrugged it off and without thinking, waved a hand towards the wall. "Neither do they."

"That man…he's a-"

"Yes," Cam smiled to herself, knowing that they, without a single moment of eye contact or explanation in the last five minutes, already could hear beneath the current. "We were together once."

"What-"

"We were too similar."

"But you're-"

"Oh no, he's with –"

"Yes, I can see that."

"It's complicated."

"So much drama where you work," he clicked his tongue and they finally met each other's eyes, laughing.

"Just today."

"Really?" Cam laughed and nodded.

"No." Cole Hart drummed his fingers against the counter top as he turned to go before with a swift spin on the balls of his feet, he practically jumped across the room in two leggy, smooth strides. He was too far into her personal space as he put both his hands on either side of her hips, leaning his face inches from hers. Cam was sure her breath had been crushed out of her from his very presence the moment he had spun around.

"Tell me the truth." His voice was a husky timber and he smelled like a wood fire and mountainsides.

"Okay," she squeaked in surprise.

"Where were you yesterday, when you didn't go home?"

"I…I…" she felt her dark eyes flickering as his grey ones, suddenly stormy and slate, flicked over her face.

"He died yesterday."

"Yes," she whispered.

"Do they know?" She didn't answer and he shook the table on which she sat, causing her to jump. He was almost manhandling her, the cop would a suspect; she had never been thus treated in her life, but she slowly shook her head. She blinked and he was by the sink again, picking up the clipboard. She wondered if she had just imagined everything that had happened.

"I'll get the nurse in here," he said brusquely as he stalked out. Cam raised a hand to her face cautiously. Her skin was on fire.

It had been real.

* * *

It was boring as hell waiting in that room, but Cam didn't dare to slink back into the ER as shaken as she was; she knew she couldn't stand up to the onslaught of both Booth and Sweets attacking her artless façade. She'd had a stressful week. Actually, ever since everyone had left, everything had been stressful; she thought that her lab family coming back would heal everything, but the tension had hurt her.

"I have good news and bad news!" His loud voice and the door slamming open startled the hell out of her. Cam spun around, busy studying a very boring painting that they had mass reproduced in all the hospital ER rooms. She was startled at the strange expression on Dr. Hart's face.

"Oh God," she slowly sank into a chair. He had on the face when as a doctor, you told people they were dying. It was one reason Cam had left the force; she had hated being the one to knock on the door and as a woman cop, she was always the one chosen to go, regardless of her emotional nature. She had always hated doing it as a doctor as well, so she had just skipped the tough part to become a coroner. She had been used to the dead by that point. She hated the living. So going to tell Michelle about her father had been one of the hardest things she had ever done, and had stirred up a lot of ugly memories of other's people's pain blazing through the air, devouring them but still scorching her on its way by to their emotional destruction.

"No, no," Dr. Hart assured her hastily. "That's not…you don't have the flu. You're expecting."

"Expecting what?" dropped out of her mouth like gum that slipped from her tongue.

He looked seriously at her, alarm flaring into his grey eyes, bordering on gold suddenly, a strange metallic hue; was that the color of pity?

"You're pregnant." Cam looked blankly at him as he fluidly with an animal grace, dropped into a crouch in front of her. He put his big warm hands on her crossed knees and Cam was startled to realize she was ice cold.

"That's not possible," she whispered. He looked at the chart and handed it to her wordlessly. She flipped through her levels, disbelieving. "It's not possible," she told him more urgently. "I haven't…I haven't been-" And suddenly _his_ face flared with panic.

"You haven't been with anyone? Is this rape?" For the first time he truly believed her cold shock and utter surprise. Of all the things, she had never seen this coming. She wanted to kick herself. She was a doctor.

"No," she said slowly, looking back. Her eyes scanned the chart. "I'm _what,_" she squeaked in surprise, staring at the weeks. "Fifteen weeks? Already? I'm…" her eyes flooded. "I'm out of the first trimester?"

"You were going to get rid of the baby?" he asked seriously. "Because you can't now. The twelve week limit…you'd have to get an abortion illegally and as your doctor I-"

"I'm just…so…" Cam could hardly breathe for surprise. Her mind flicked back over her symptoms: The vivid dreams so real she could touch them. The restless insomnia. The despair and feelings of isolation, of loneliness, of being completely misunderstood. The crushing fatigue that was constantly tiring her. Her aching joints, her backaches. Her swollen feet and ankles. Her knee jerk reaction to burst into tears at the slightest of provocation. The bizarre cravings for unlikely combinations of food such as peanut butter and popcorn, or jam and chocolate. The unreserved craving for more food and bigger portions. The desperate need to glut on healing chocolate. The constant irritability. The overblown adrenal glands. The sweating, especially at night trying to sleep. The similar symptoms to depression. The ashenness. Her lank hair and sickly pallor. The dizzy spells. The nausea. And oh God, the morning sickness. She wanted to laugh hysterically. She was a doctor for Christ's sake. How could she not have diagnosed _morning sickness?_

"Do you have any ideas who could be the father?"

"Don't even say that," she whispered, her lips numb. But she knew. It hit her like the car crash from earlier and she could see her face was transparent as he carefully watched her reaction.

"You know?" he asked quietly. His Boston brogue made the words richer, more velvety.

"I don't know his name," she said dully. "It was one night. It was…months ago. God. Almost…four months ago."

"Perfect timing."

"I'm on the pill," she said in the same, disinterested tone. "I've been taking it all this time; I didn't miss my periods since I rarely have them anyway. There's no point when I'm not sexually active." Cam was wincing inside, flinching away from the pitiful clinical words falling from the pathetic truth of her life.

"That's okay," he said, his hand over hers. Cam drew hers away, slumping against the back of her chair. She was a pariah. She shouldn't even be touching him.

"What will I do?" she wondered aloud, completely shocked. She realized he was no longer touching her because his head was stuck outside the exam door, conversing quietly with a nurse before he came to sit on the chair beside her, neither even looking at the crinkled examining table. She stared at her hands. "I'm a coward," she nodded glumly. "If…if I had known. I would have…taken care of it."

"Just like that?" he asked quietly; she could hear the anger there. She wanted to sigh. Great. A fundamentalist.

"I have a daughter. I don't have a husband, I don't have a provider I don't have-"

"Anyone?" he guessed shrewdly. Cam closed her eyes, ignoring him. She knew her mind should be racing, but it was moving sluggishly like she was moving through a thick liquid.

"There's no question of keeping it, of course." Dr. Hart sprung to his feet.

"WHAT?" She looked at him blankly. "How can you _say_ that?" Cam finally caught up.

"No," she hastened to reassure him. "I mean, I will obviously keep the…the…keeping it. I meant...there's just no way of getting rid of it now. I have to carry it through, regardless."

"Oh," he sank down. They were silent.

"I just don't know what to tell…"

"Who?"

"All of them…to Michelle…"

"That's your daughter," Cam nodded.

"I suppose this is good." He looked at her critically.

"What do you mean?" Cam looked at him for the first time, honestly, tears in her eyes.

"I mean my life is over."

"A baby is a new beginning. A second chance," he contradicted. She gave him a watery smile.

"Not the…" she folded her hands, upset and still bewildered, over her stomach. "I mean my career. God, what will I tell them? What will I tell Michelle? What will I tell-" she cut herself off, staring under her palms folded across her middle. How could she not have known? The dreams of Tony especially…she never remembered her dreams.

"And even…even if I gave it up for adoption," she breathed slowly, "that's not the hard part. The hard part is being pregnant when I'm…" She shook her head harshly, feeling his too intense gaze on her.

"When you're what?" he pressed. She laughed and pushed away from him in her chair, rifling through her purse.

"Well, for a woman who is three months pregnant and going on four in a week…you look very well. You haven't gained a pound," he was pandering to her vanity and she new it.

"I've gained six," she snapped, her hands shaking as she scrabbled for her lip gloss.

"You don't do that, do you angel?" his voice was musing, thoughtful. She rolled her eyes, determined not to ask what he was talking about. Her unspoken question though, seemed enough to prompt his answer. "Share."

"What? I share."

"Emotionally?" he asked shrewdly, and Cam stared at him blankly.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Camille – Cam – whichever you like-"

"Please stop," she said very softly, very simply. "Don't make this more awkward than it has to be." His grey eyes studied hers as she broke the contact so he could stare at ebony lashes instead. She studied her cuticles on swollen fingers. "I know we were…mocking each other earlier." She didn't say _flirting_ because she knew where he was going with this. "But…I just wanted to say thank you for all you've done today Dr. Hart and I-"

"Cole."

"What?"

"I said, call me Cole." Cam stopped, confused, not needing to finish her speech or hear his, to comprehend their argument. It was unnerving how most of their conversations were predetermined and mutually understood.

"You don't want to be with me," she said, canting her own head to match his at an angle, "especially not now." He looked seriously at her, a hint of a snarl flitting about his upper lip.

"Why not?"

"Because," she laughed in surprise, but the laugh was despairing, ironic. It twisted her pretty features into something cruel, ugly. "Well –" she gestured at herself. "Because."

"You're still beautiful." She saw his face flush a little and she knew that wasn't supposed to have slipped out.

"Please make this simple," she said quietly. "Don't make this more difficult than it has to be."

"What's simpler? I'm just a boy," his coyote smile was creeping up the corners until his lips were pressed together, twinkling at her.

"If you say I'm just a girl, we'll be too far back in the 90s to come out unscathed."

"You have to talk to them. They're all waiting for you." He had done it again, with one of his lightning fast quicksilver moods. He had been teasing, enchanting, and now he was serious, a doctor again.

"I'm going." She stood quietly. He loomed up beside her and was within a breath of her lips before she could speak. She stumbled back and he caught her hand, reeling her around just as he had mere hours before, finding her shaken from the car crash. She had been breathless with rage before, and now was breathless with something more.

"Stop it," she protested, ripping her hand from his grasp. He didn't protest. He was laughing at her. He wasn't making a sound, but the smug grin on his face and his twinkling grey eyes were mocking her.

"You like it."

"What are you talking about?" She made her voice bored, uninterested as she straightened her blazer.

"You like me because I'm a scoundrel." Cam - who had been admittedly smitten, had firmly ruled she would leave it amicably and drive quietly out of his life- turned. She frowned, but her frown was a sham.

"You did _not_ just compare yourself to Han Solo." His grin, already wolfish, went positively demonic with fiendish delight. He started forward, laughing beneath his black eyebrows.

"Oh doll, for you to even get the reference…that's the real treat."

There was a sharp knock on the door and they were immediately on opposite sides of the room, two skittish animals circling the thick tension. The nurse stuck her head in.

"A man outside has been quite insistent that we check on your condition, Miss Saroyan." Cam didn't bother to correct the appellation; she didn't need to ask who was being a brat either. Seeley.

Her grief, worry and downright fear of what they would say crushed her, freezing her to the spot. She jerked her head like a stop motion picture.

What they would say. Her father, who still thought she was pure. Her sister, who would never finish mocking her for this. Her friends. What Booth would say, especially, knowing she never for one moment lapsed in control; now here she was with the ramifications of loosening it for one moment. She hated herself – she should have known better. She didn't deserve an easy life. Somewhere out there, she had been predetermined to have one like this. She should have married Andrew. She should have raised Michelle and had more children in a traditional family. She should have looked the other way at his infidelities. Then she wouldn't be here.

"Come on angel, move it a little faster." She realized Dr. Hart – Cole – had been at her elbow for half a minute, trying to edge around as her fingers were frozen convulsively around the doorknob to the hallway towards the exit.

It was surreal; like moving in a dream. She only had taken the tiniest of steps to keep herself balanced from his push behind her before she was propelled out the double doors, staring blankly at their expectant faces, lined up in a perfect row. Some stood, some sat ramrod straight, but all waited in perfect silence.

"Well?" demanded Hodgins at last. Cam opened her mouth.

"I'm pregnant," she said simply.

Or that's what she wanted to have happened. Instead, she stood, gaping like a fish, silhouetted in the light behind her.

"I forgot my purse," she mumbled incoherently and stepped back through the doors, screening her from sight, letting them worry for a few moments longer.

Without looking around, she slammed her back against the wall and slumped to the floor, hands to her temples, pulling on fistfuls of tight hair cached in her ponytail. She pushed her knees to her face. What she needed was time. It had been what – five, ten minutes – since she had known? She needed a game plan. She never just "winged it" like Angela. She was too ordered like Booth and Brennan. She had to have a plan. She had to _know_; and to know, she needed to know how she felt. For God's sake, how could she tell her abstinent (she hoped) seventeen year old daughter she cavorted at bars and had sex in the bed upstairs while her daughter was at a graduation party? How could she even look her in the eye? How could she ever tell the ba—Cam crushed her eye sockets into her kneecaps, folding herself smaller, fitting the pieces together like they were made to.

God, she hated feelings. She hated looking at them or acknowledging them, because as soon as she did, a thousand others clamored for her attention. It made her weak, and it made her vulnerable. She had been there and done that, and it had gotten her into this mess in the first place.

She needed quiet, and alone, and space. Space. She wanted to laugh bitterly. She had that, in plenty. If her heart was a hotel, and all her friends were guests, well emotionally speaking, they had checked out of her life a long time ago. Especially Booth. She didn't have many other friends, and she was too proud to beg them to listen. Too stubborn. She realized pitifully, she was crying.

The hormones, she wanted to console herself, but that only made it worse. She sobbed into her knees but they were restrained, tiny hiccups. She needed to get to a bathroom, to a sanctuary to fall apart in peace before she could see them.

She never got what she wanted.

"Oh no, no angel, don't cry. Don't cry." A big, warm body slumped down next to her, arms encircling her shoulders and for one perfect _second_ she allowed herself to melt away, to let someone else finally lift the huge burden that she had carried invisibly, silently, proudly. For one perfect blissful second, she allowed someone to hold her before she snapped that she had to hold herself. She had been dropped too many times, bruised and battered too many times, to let herself fall for this again.

She threw her head up like a startled horse and without so much as a sniffle wiped her eyes away, careful not to smear her makeup. She felt pale, and knew by the wrinkles Dr. Hart was starting to get around his eyes, she was wan, and the hand he had clenched into his own, was clammy.

"I can't do this," she whispered. "I can't tell them."

"It can't be a secret forever," he said seriously, chafing the palm of her hand between his own. His thumbs began to circle gently over the back of her skin; Cam remembered his _Star Wars_ quote and almost smiled. She also almost smiled at the fluttering that was far deeper than the pit of her stomach that his touch curdled awake. She wanted to laugh at the irony.

"It will be as long as it can," she answered firmly and stood. He came with her, and encircled his palm around her forearm like a manacle. She was shaking; she knew it and could feel herself swaying, trembling beneath him. "I can't tell them," she repeated quietly, but it came out as a mumble.

"When did you last eat?"

"When you fed me this morning," she said with a crooked smile.

"Two crackers?" he said in disbelief. "You've had 2 crackers in the last 24 hours?"

"Longer than that," she whispered; she wasn't smiling anymore. A pair of abandoned crutches rested on a stretcher but in her mind they were planted jauntily in the grass, a message of hope and walking scored on them, and on her heart.

"What do you need?" he asked seriously, and his worry was overflowed with his Boston brogue. She couldn't even look in his eyes; she stared at the floor and shook silently, an aspen leaf on a barren mountain.

"I just need…" she groped for what she needed and found it. "The dark…the…quiet…" She felt the beginnings of a migraine stir in response to what seemed like heaven.

"Okay," he rumbled; it was more a growl than actual words. "Okay. We'll get you an empty room." He led her softly down the hall and turned down an abandoned corridor. He left her at the mouth of it to check ahead and she stumbled after him, hardly able to see the shining surface she tread. She must have been wavering like a drunk because he was back and he wasn't having any of it. She screeched a miserable little protest, more a tiny whine of sound than thrashing, when he scooped her off the linoleum as if she weighed as much as a baby. He caught a single word that made him grin wolfishly: scoundrel. Cam concentrated on staying awake as he gently laid her on the bed.

"Lie down here I'll go talk to them." Cam clenched at his jacket, content to dream in the dark.

"You can't tell them," she forced her fingers a little deeper into his jacket sleeve. "You can't tell them." He nodded soberly and stared down at her.

"Apparently neither can you."


	8. You Can Never Go Home Again

**Try a Cam story without Cam. **

* * *

Angela was pacing. Hodgins was watching her uneasily, and though Sweets had his gaze locked on the rolling body and bouncing curls, his gaze was unfocused. Brennan was busy absentmindedly reorganizing words into smaller amalgams around the room.

Emergency. _Merge. Mere. Gene. Germ. Green._

Please Wait. _Pilates. Weal. Pale. Wile. Teal. Tape._

She continued on, unaware of her trailing fingers drawing little circles along Booth's forearm, which was slumped across her lap. He was dead asleep, leaning heavily against her shoulder and slightly drooling. Brennan shivered as she felt a hot trickle of sweat from _his_ face wend its way down her scapulae. She focused a little more, ignoring how warm he was, how heavy, but a nice kind of heavy – the kind of heavy like a man on top of sex, or a dog laying across her feet or even a thick comforter in winter – the kind that bent the tops her feet towards the mattress.

Someone cleared a throat. No one stirred. Angela was busy counting how many blue and red tiles her feet could step on – oceans and pools of fire - the red and blue borders around cement colored linoleum.

Hodgins was idly thinking of baby names. He didn't want the kid to have a horrible name like Stanley. He wanted him, or _her_, to have a first name worth having. Something strong, masculine, like Beckett – something that sounded like a last name. He would like that, a tribute to him. But the girl…if he had a daughter…Hodgins was dreamily staring at her stomach and toying with names like Adrianna or Alanna – names that meant beloved. 'A' names for Angela.

Someone cleared that throat again.

Sweets idly curled a lock of his boyish hair around a finger. He wondered if Cam was all right. She was always nice to him, if a little distant. He wondered if she had always been distant; he had never noticed. He felt like a failure as a psychologist. Then he felt guilty for thinking about himself.

"Guys." They all snapped their head around at the third throat clearing.

"Uh oh," Hodgins more growled the words than said them aloud; Angela didn't have to hear him – her eyes were already talking in frantic gestures at him.

"Hi Hannah," said Sweets politely. Hannah stood there, staring at Booth drooling over Brennan's breasts – literally – as she shook him awake.

"Booth," Brennan said insistently, shaking him. He grumbled. "Booth!" he muttered sleepily, his head jerking up and down. She pushed him off of her, thinking his inner ear and falling of vertigo would wake him. He hit the floor right as he woke up.

"What!" He yelled at her. "What did you do that for, Jesus Bones! I was sleeping there; you're comfy!" He looked around and stopped his gaze at the toes of Hannah's boots. His gaze cinematically traveled up mile long legs in jeans to a head of angelic blonde hair and a quizzically frowning face. "Oh. Hi honey."

Angela, a reader of people almost as adept as Booth, smirked. So Hannah finally saw that spark that everyone else could hear like a foghorn sounding unceasingly, which represented the tension between the two partners. It wasn't like she would break up with him…not right away. But she was satisfied. The seed had been planted. And as long as Booth and Brennan were together…well that seed would be a firmly rooted tree between Hannah and Booth.

"How is she?" asked Hannah to Booth as she gripped his hand and he hauled himself up, gentleman that he was, hardly using her leverage.

"We don't know," he answered just as quietly.

"She came out a couple minutes ago," said Hodgins, coming over, "but she forgot her purse and turned around. She looked pretty…" he exchanged a glanced with Angela.

"Bad," she sighed. "Bad is the word you're looking for. Like she was going to pass out."

"Oh God," groaned Booth. He avoided looking at Hannah but his guilt was palpable even to the clumsy Brennan who gripped his arm with her fingers tightly in support but removed them as if she had clutched the stovetop upon seeing Hannah's face.

"She'll be okay," Hannah whispered to him instead, running her fingers through his short hair. It didn't help. It just reminded him of Cam.

"You can't know that," argued Brennan. Hannah shot her a scandalized glance, but Brennan's bluntness did more for Booth than pity. They all spun excitedly at Sweets' gesture.

Dr. Hart had slipped through the swinging doors, clipboard under one arm. He held up a hand to forestall their savannah-at-the-watering-hole attack.

"She's resting," he said politely.

"She was just out here," bitched Hodgins.

"What's wrong with her?" asked Booth, his tone actually deferential in the face of Cam's illness.

"She's resting," Dr. Hart repeated.

"What does that mean?" snapped Angela. "He asked what's _wrong_ with her?" Dr. Hart hesitated.

"Wait, wait, what aren't you telling us?" asked Sweets suspiciously.

"I'm not at liberty-" began Dr. Hart. His shying antelope act brought on the lions.

"We're like her _family_ dammit," swore Booth, nice tone gone. Hannah curled her fingers into his arm, which had Dr. Hart glancing inadvertently to Brennan in confusion. He had thought... She caught his glance and forced herself to speak as well.

"Surely it's not so bad that you can't tell us-"

"I need a better answer than 'you aren't at liberty,'" stormed Angela.

"Is this a conspiracy?" asked Hodgins, which had the entire group groaning and Sweets talking loudly over them.

"I'm a psychologist! I should be informed –" Dr. Hart went on the offensive. He spun to Sweets.

"But are you _her_ psychologist?"

"Um…no…" stammered the young Sweets.

"Are any of you doctors?" he continued not-quite-pleasantly.

"I am," said Brennan in a bland tone. Her ironic and square eyed gaze made Dr. Hart laugh outright.

"Okay, okay, the angel wins." Booth scowled and Dr. Hart preened knowing he had found a loophole in the group. "Let's start with names. And we'll sit down." He opened his arms in a shepherding motion and reluctantly the herd moved to cluster around a table in one corner of the waiting room.

"I'm Cole Hart," he touched his fingers to his chest and inclined his head meaningfully at Brennan who looked startled but held out her hand.

"Temperance Brennan."

"We've met." He flashed her a debonair smile. She glanced quickly at Booth, uncomfortable with his blatant flirting. Booth looked as if he would ooze phosphorescent green bile out of his ears.

"Angela Montenegro," Angela continued the circle. Booth crushed Dr. Hart's fingers and Hannah soothed at them. Dr. Hart lay his clipboard over his lap as he lounged backwards in his chair draping an arm nonchalantly. In response, Booth leaned forward, forearms on his knees, gazing intently.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked in his quietest, deadliest voice. Dr. Hart's face spasmed.

"She's under a lot of stress."

"At work?" Brennan sounded scandalized that anyone could not love the Jeffersonian with the same vehement passion as she did.

"At work. At home," conceded Dr. Hart. Jesus, he had to tell them _something_.

"With Michelle?" It was Sweets now, looking worried. "Should we call her here?" Dr. Hart shook his head as Booth spoke up over him.

"Should we call Felicia? Is it that serious?"

"No," said Dr. Hart vehemently. "No. It's nothing that serious."

"Then why isn't she _out_ yet?" spit Angela through gritted teeth. Hodgins took her hands in his and squeezed them without taking his blue eyes off Cole Hart's face. Angela pulled one away to grab chocolate from her purse.

"She's probably sleeping." Dr. Hart winced. "Don't call her sister, please, I don't think she wants to talk to her right now."

"Did they get in a fight?" asked Hodgins, guilelessly. Sweets had steepled his fingers and was simply listening, leaning back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other.

"We're her family. You don't have to call anyone." The quiet speaker was Brennan, who had everyone looking at her in outright shock, mouths open comically. Cole wished for one glorious instant, that a fly would fly into the big, obviously ex-army, obnoxious man's mouth. No such luck.

"She's right," Angela finally stuttered out. She looked around compassionately. "I consider you all my family. You're who I'll want when…" she paused, remembering Hodgins didn't know that everyone else already knew about the baby. But the sentiment was felt all around.

"You guys are all _I _have," admitted Sweets quietly.

"Cam is like a sister to me," ground out Booth. "If anything happened to her – to-" he clenched his jaw shut again, remembering the last time Cam had been in the hospital. She had been so damn close to death. He had seen her seizing on the floor, eyes rolling, and he had felt helpless. He felt that way now; the overpowering crush of waiting. But this time it was _his_ fault. He hadn't noticed anything. This wasn't some serial killer playing mind games. This was what Michelle had blatantly accused him of: ignoring his family in favor of Hannah. He turned his face sharply to the floor away from her blonde hair. His eyes instead caught those of his partner. She already knew exactly what he was thinking. He _saw_ her reach out before clenching her hands shut. He knew that she knew, she couldn't hold his arm like she used to. In response, he let Hannah grab his fists and worry at the fingers. But his eyes were for Brennan alone, thanking her for the sentiment Hannah didn't understand.

"We all agree that Cam is our family," Sweets finally said into the silence. Cole Hart looked shrewdly around at the circle of faces.

"But does she know that?" No one spoke.

"Do you know why she is stressed?" Brennan finally breached the question again with more composure and less accusation than the others had.

"I believe she's worried about developing some of the family genetics." Cole swallowed the little white lie but looked possessively around. He had no right to meddle in her life like this; but he wasn't breaking HIPPA either. He waited his conversational string to trip up their wires.

"About what?" the half Asian knockout was the first to demand the answer. He addressed her.

"Some of the neurological diseases that run in her family. She's worried that her illness may be the first signs of that occurring." Cam hadn't said as much, but Cole had been in medicine a long time. Her face when he had come in, in response to his, had been one of blind terror. He had known why, after poring over her chart – and pulling her brother's – while waiting for the blood work.

Booth looked around, completely nonplussed. "What are you talking about? She doesn't have any."

Dr. Hart made a show of checking his charts on his clipboard, deliberately building suspense.

"But her brother did."

"She has a brother?" Booth didn't speak this time, it was Angela again, outspoken and shocked. "I thought it was just her and Felicia."

"It is," said Booth grimly. Cole had to give him points for catching on so quickly. No one else seemed to understand yet; they knew less than even he.

"It appears that he died when she was young, here in her medical records – yes. Anthony Saroyan. Born, 1974. Died, 1989. Age: 15. He was diagnosed with SMA –" here Cole paused, relishing the need to explain things. It appeared Brennan shared it because she beat him to the punch.

"Spinal muscular dystrophy. A neurological, neuromuscular disease often present in children. Development either causes paraplegia, trouble with respiration, or severe muscular loss. It can be onset at any time, from early infant death to not diagnosed until late 60s."

"Very good doll," said Cole smoothly, not the least bit put out she explained it so succinctly or well. She looked like a kid who'd been given a gold star: pleased but smug as if she expected but still relished it.

"Oh my God," said Angela again. Quieter, more hushed.

"Then what happened to him?" ground out Booth, still behind.

"He was just a normal kid," shrugged Dr. Hart. "It looks like he wasn't diagnosed until he was twelve or thirteen. Probably closer to puberty since his growth wasn't affected. He was the eldest of three children, athletic, good looking, smart."

"Stop it." It was Booth, glaring at him, grinding it through his teeth, as if every word Dr. Hart was saying was slicing him up inside.

"Well, it developed very quickly," said Dr. Hart quietly. "In less than three years he was gone. He died in surgery. Cardiac arrest on the table; many patients with SMA have trouble breathing and undergo a lot of therapy for it. He was getting a surgery to correct his feet; he had been walking with polio crutches and help of a wheelchair."

"Oh God. No." Hodgins was wiping his hand over his face, exchanging glances with Angela who looked equally desperate.

"What's wrong?" barked Booth. Sweets sat forward.

"Did something happen?" Dr. Hart played the question to the audience.

"Yesterday – when Cam took off? It was right after a post man delivered a letter. And a box with polio crutches."

"I opened it on the Forensic Platform. Cam said I could," Hodgins said defensively.

"Which means she wasn't expecting them," murmured Sweets, the first contribution he'd had in a long time.

"That's not all," said Hodgins grimly. "I thought it was weird someone had sent her crutches, and she was busy dealing with her sister."

"She's a handful," sighed Booth in agreement.

"Well, Felicia was pissed and making a scene in the lab," Angela put in. "Cam was trying to smooth it all over – like she always does." Dr. Hart leaned backwards, crossing his arms, listening hard to the quick little trivial facts of a woman he just met.

"Yeah," said Hodgins with a shrug; Angela put a hand over his tattoo of her face under a sleeve. "But there was writing on the crutches."

"Well what did it say?" asked Hannah, her first contribution to a family she didn't understand.

"I won't be needing these anymore," Hodgins quoted morosely. "In sharpie with a couple of smiley faces."

"Oh my God," Angela buried her face into her husbands neck. She was embarrassed that she was crying _for_ Cam.

"After that she just took off, and we didn't think anything of it," finished Hodgins lamely.

"Has she been acting weird lately?" queried Sweets to the general group.

"She's been ill," advocated Brennan. Cole held his breath afraid she would guess. But Cam seeming to have a life outside of the lab was a foreign concept to the woman.

"She hasn't been sleeping," verified Booth. "She came into the lab a couple days ago and there were words on her face where she fell asleep on the table reading."

"And she has bruises on her arms," corroborated Brennan slowly again. "From holding herself together like this." She demonstrated for Dr. Hart and Sweets.

"She told us it was Felicia," said Angela, sniffling.

"Part of that might be true," said Booth, still clasping his hands together, staring at the floor, Hannah's hand wrapped possessively around a thick bicep. "Felicia is…" he breathed out an ironic laugh.

"Some _woman_," corroborated Hodgins, his voice leaden with irony.

"She never told us…me…" Booth's voice cracked a little, "she had a brother."

"She never told anyone," said Hannah, laying her head on his shoulder. Booth looked like he wanted nothing more than to shake her off and pace. Brennan knew she would have let him be; best not to crowd him.

"It's a lot of stress," sighed Sweets. "I get that. But why now?"

"He died yesterday," spoke Dr. Hart in such a low voice the entire group jumped, having forgotten he was there the way the lab usually excluded outsiders. "Perhaps that's why she feels so isolated," he observed, "feeling no one can understand, too proud to burden anyone around her with something she considers weak and silly. A grief that's 20 years old."

"Just like Cam," groaned Booth.

"It's _not_ silly," said Sweets adamantly.

"Not to her," agreed Cole, and his grey eyes smoked threateningly. "This is her family we're talking about."

"God, he died in 1989?" asked Booth suddenly, doing the math on his fingers. He had made Hannah jump by slapping a palm to the table in front of his knees. A notch of respect was carefully etched into Cole's mind at Booth's quick calculations.

"Why? What's wrong?" Hannah was smoothing his shirtsleeve obsessively.

"Her mother died in 1991. Not two years later. Oh God, poor Cam. She told me her teenage years were hard and I just put it down to-" He dropped his guilty head into his hands, feeling as if it weighed to much to keep it level with self respecting people.

"We didn't even know," sighed Angela for the rest of the group.

"We know now," said Brennan grimly, standing up. The rest followed suit.

Dr. Hart led them, a phalanx of silent soldiers, to her room where he knocked on the door.


	9. A Lost Dog In The High Weeds

"Hey," it was Angela's ingratiating little whisper that wormed its way into her dream. "Can we come in?" Cam groaned a little against the pillow. Where was she? Bemused, she raised a hand to her groggy eyes, glued shut from contacts. She shoved thick feeling fingers over her eyebrows. She wasn't quite awake because she gasped, stiffening all over. The rest of the lab stiffened with her and Booth jerked forward involuntarily. Dr. Hart also skated forward, worried as she sat bolt upright, staring around with panicked, unseeing eyes, panting.

"Relax Cam," said Booth suddenly, his eyes devouring her ashen face. "It was a dream."

"A dream?" she breathed. Booth frowned, confused. Cam's voice was higher, breathier and there was something…_off_ about her tone. Dr. Hart's face crumpled the slightest bit and he put a hand on her shoulder.

"Warent." Cole paused and squeezed her shoulder. "Twasn't a drame," he grated the words out in his Boston brogue. Booth had to muddle through several parts of a second to realize Cole had told her it wasn't a dream. Booth then realized what had been off about her voice; it was her Bronx slum talk. When she had met Booth it was the summer after her senior year she had been 17. He had been 22 and just back from basic training, about to deploy. Their romance had been innocent and perfect and bound up together through broken families and smoking cigarettes until 1 am under streetlights on playgrounds, swinging on swingsets and speaking of anything and everything. Even then, as infatuated as his _first_ romance with Camille had been – her friendship had been invaluable. Her accent though, had been thicker. She had cursed more and been less of the professional she had become through police work and medical school. He had laughed his ass off hearing her thoughts of working through the police academy while going to college. She had stared at him straight in the face and not laughed until his own had died away. She couldn't afford to leave the Bronx; she went to Manhattan college (of decent repute) and worked for the force as a spitfire kid who the cops picked on and grew to respect in the four years as an underling, and then in the next four years as she became a detective for homicide. She left at 23 – the youngest non-rookie ever – to get to medical school. He realized, with a hateful nostalgia, Cam's utter dependence on him, never getting quite too close, as skittish as an alley cat but genuinely happy to have his company. And loving the company of little Jared – when he had to tag along. Booth realized she had loved having brothers again. He was an idiot.

His blood ran cold when he finally – in the flash of a second – understood what dream Cam had been having. She had been asking if Tony's death was a dream and he had fed her false hope. He watched, horrified, along with clinical Sweets, as her eyes widened focusing on cruel reality, flick from face to face and finally recall themselves to the present time, 20 years older in more ways than one.

"Yes of course," she murmured, smoothing her hair down; her voice was professional again, with perfect diction and inflection; inwardly though she was dwelling on one of her favorite movies _Good Will Hunting. _She felt her face heat from its sickly pallor at the comparison. She wanted to die comparing Cole to Matt Damon, but the Boston Brogue was such a pervasive influence. She was glad no one could read minds; Booth's radar seemed to be on the fritz. His conflict with Brennan was producing blissful radio static. The closest he had come to understanding how much of a a mess she truly was when he had read the words off her cheek.

"I'm sorry," it was Cole speaking to her and Cam swallowed down her utterly stupid anguish. She nodded and flashed him a brief smile before turning with composure, heaving a huge sigh to face her friends. It's not as if they knew anything.

"So. I'm good to go," she said with false cheerfulness. Her ashen skin, her lank hair and her trembling fingers as she viciously ignored her entire world falling apart, didn't fool anyone.

"Lie down Cam," said Angela gently, pressing her back. Cam simply stared at her and smiled. It was only _now_ that Angela could see how false it was and wondered how long Cam had been scamming them all with her façade of normalcy.

"We know Sweetie," said Angela in the same hushed tones.

"What?" Cam looked in terror around the room, her arms curling convulsively around her middle. She targeted Cole. "You can't tell them!" she screeched. "You're my doctor you –"

"But he wasn't _his_ doctor," said Sweets, in a moderately adult tone that cut Cam off effectively. She loosened her hold on herself, arms falling into her lap limply as swiftly as the smile falling off her face.

"What?" she said carefully. "What are you talking about?" she kept all inflection out of her voice.

"We know about Tony," snapped Booth finally, wiping a hand over his jaw. "Oh God Cam – that sounded –"

"You told them?" her horrified accusation pinned Cole Hart to the wall as effectively as any spear. He matched her glare for glare.

"I had to tell them something." The words were for her alone, and could mean nothing to anyone else, but she still blanched. He continued on. "They were so worried. They mobbed me. I had to tell them _something_."

"It's true," Hodgins helped to verify the veracity of the statement. "We wouldn't leave him alone."

"We were very worried." Brennan's bald faced statement surprised Cam. She swallowed, looking around. Her first and loudest thought was to hop out of the bed, brush past them all and escape, leaving the rest of them to exclaim about the rudeness. Her brain immediately refuted that. There would be a scene; exactly what she wanted to avoid. She could let them take care of her; that was immediately discarded in favor of mortification. She settled for her only modicum of control – a head on attack. She would let them talk to her and she would be calm. She would smooth it over, as she always did. She had fallen down the stairs; admittedly this would be much harder with Booth and Cole there but she could distract the former with Hannah and the latter…well she would never have to see him again anyway.

"I'm sorry for worrying you, but honestly it's something that happened a long time ago." Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Cole crossing his arms like a smug cat in cream, ready for a show. She blushed; he couldn't have embarrassed more than if she had been strip teasing. He so easily saw through her little manipulating games. She felt a brief pang of guilt before she pushed him from her mind. Angela's eyes narrowed. _Outstanding. _This would be harder than she thought.

"You should have told us," accused Angela. Booth said nothing, but his unspoken words still screamed through her head. _You should have told _me. Cam grimaced at him.

"At first it was too hard to talk about," she said quietly for him alone, "and afterwards," she looked around her to include everyone, "it didn't…" she bit off the word 'matter' and simply said, "come up."

"You didn't let it come up," said Sweets firmly. Cam sighed, feigned a shrug.

"Maybe. You're probably right," she let her shoulders slump and had the gratification of watching the kid preen just the littlest bit. Booth wasn't so easily fooled.

"Camille."

"Hello Hannah," Cam said pleasantly instead. "I didn't expect you." Hannah at least had the grace to blush.

"Well Seeley texted me and he was truly worried. Something about a car crash…"

"No, I pulled a boy out of a car accident," she corrected smoothly. "And I've been sick, so when I came to pick my car up from the parking lot, Dr. Hart here was nice enough to take a moment of his very valuable time to go through my blood work."

"That's nice," conceded Hannah. She smiled radiantly and Booth's furrowed brow faltered. Dr. Hart had his coyote grin on again; he understood the jab his way about his time being valuable and how perfectly happy she would be if he would leave her alone now.

"Are you sick?" continued Hannah guilelessly. Cam shrugged a little half shrug.

"Like I told them, just a little bug." She thought Cole would fall over and die laughing. Her ears burned but she set her jaw grimly. If he opened one inch of that sharp-toothed smile she would deck him.

_A little bug_, Cole seemed to find that hilarious. Cam was glad _he_ at least found the humor.

"Oh," Hodgins looked vaguely disappointed. "We thought you'd have something terribly romantic like cholera." Cam gave him a withering glare. Angela snorted.

"Cholera? Really Jack? God." Hodgins shrugged helplessly, a stupid smile on his face when he looked at Angela.

"So we've all been in the waiting room for…"

"Nothing," Cam finished for Hannah's dubious sentence. She laughed suddenly. Hannah scowled at Dr. Hart.

"Wonderful. And I think it's really rotten of the doctor here trying to pawn off your emotions as a source of illness."

"It was rather over handed," added Brennan.

"Under handed," corrected Booth absently. She flashed an irked glare.

"Fine. A blow below the jeans."

"The belt."

"Whatever."

"You're the anthropologist," he smirked cheekily. "Get it right."

"You're impossible."

"We're leaving," he fumed. Taking Hannah's hand purposefully, Booth left the room. Cam wasn't the only one studying Brennan's hurt face before she schooled it instantly into neutrality. They didn't have to be mind readers to see the clasped hands dancing before her blue eyes.

"Well if that's all," Brennan began, "I suggest you take the next week off Cam."

"A _week_!" screeched Cam in irritation. "That's not fair!"

"What's not fair," continued Brennan blithely, lashing blindly out as she had done at Clark, "is that you are endangering us with an illness. As Booth would say, 'Get it together.'"

She left by herself but Sweets followed her out with a protest of, "Dr. Brennan!"

"Oh dear," sighed Angela. "This is not good. They are not good." She waggled fingers at the invisible presence of Booth and Brennan.

"Tell me about it." Cam massaged her temples with her fingers. She would love to go home now.

"You're looking better at least," noted Hodgins in an attempt to cheer her.

"Thanks," smiled Cam, her usual dimples not quite making it.

"Actually," and all three of them jumped, easy camaraderie shattered by a fourth voice. Cam had totally forgotten the presence of Cole Hart altogether. He had been watching with interest as if she were navigating a football field. "I just have a few more discharge papers…"

"Sure, we'll wait outside," said Hodgins quickly, taking Angela's hand in his own.

"I'm fine," Cam said wearily. "Just go. I'll just go home from here."

"Okay," said Hodgins cheerfully.

"Okay," echoed Angela dubiously.

They were finally gone.

Cam slowly turned, feeling as if she were moving again in stop motion, a fluttering in the pit of her stomach that had nothing to do with being pregnant, to look at this _man_.

She didn't say anything.

Neither did he.

"Well," she eventually started, feeling awkward under his stone grey gaze. "Thanks for-"

"Impressive," he said in a low voice, almost a growl. His Boston brogue was back.

"What?" she asked, not as bemused as she feigned.

"You know what." He leaned leisurely back against the counter, bones liquefying as he lazily grinned. "Playing them against each other to divert the attention from you."

"I didn-" she began a pitiful protest, but his raised eyebrows stopped her.

"You did."

"So what?" she snapped. "So I'm embarrassed. Just give me some time to figure this out!"

"That's not how it's supposed to work." A corner of his coyote grin was twitching, but Cam was failing to see the humor.

"What?" she finally huffed.

"Friendships. They don't work like that."

"Like _what_?" she exclaimed. This man was toeing the line, seriously. He was about as easy to get along with as a four year old.

"You say you're perfectly willing to share." Although Cam hadn't said that, he had inferred it from her calm and collected attack. Cam bit in the inside of her lip and acquiesced with a tight nod. His grin showed those two crooked canine teeth. "But you aren't willing to share _while_ it's going on. Only in retrospect." Cam felt her blood run cold. He was dangerous. He was too good. He had known her a handful of hours and already had cut through the crap she had wrapped her life up in. She hadn't told Booth about her mother for more than a year after first meeting him; she had needed that time to grieve by herself, to understand it more than anything. Dear God, and it had been 20 years since Tony and she was _still_ pathetic, running away to graveyard just because she got some silly letter in the mail. Cam bit the inside of her cheek. She had forgiven her mother for dying, at least. Her mother had never been as close to her anyway. Of all her children, Cam felt she was the least favored. Mothers weren't supposed to do that, but they did anyway.

"Goodbye Dr. Hart," she said in response, and stood up. He was there again, damnably too close into her personal space and she flinched. Hell, it wasn't like she was afraid of human contact or anything, but the way _he_ did it was too much for her frazzled nerves.

"A moment Dr. Saroyan." He was equally polite. He gave her his card. His number was on the back. He winked roguishly. "Call me anytime if you have…questions."

"I'm a doctor," she snapped right back. "I'll figure it out."

"I already have your number," he said smugly. "I got it from Dr. Brennan." Cam's face darkened.

"You're unbelievable."

"Thank you angel."

"Get out," she managed to muster something that sounded like indignation.

"It's my hospital," he said comfortably. He was slouching in front of the door frame.

"It's not _your hospital_," she mocked. "And why won't you _move?"_ She shoved against him and he looked down in amusement at her tiny hands. Cam had never felt more helpless in her life – including all her dangers and scrapes over the years as a cop and pathologist.

"I need you to be straight with me, for one moment," he said, his Boston brogue gone, but his voice deep. She looked up at him and dropped her shoving hands as if branded.

"What?" she growled.

"Why now? Why are you upset about your brother all these years?" She slumped a little. He pressed. "You know other people are going to ask. Might as well get your story straight now."

"He sent me a letter," she sighed heavily. "He wrote a series of letters in the hospital when he was…preparing for surgery." Her tongue felt thick. She hadn't quite managed to spit out "dying" because at that time she hadn't known it. Cole's face softened.

"I see. And when was the last time you thought of him?"

"Not for a long time," Cam responded honestly, staring at the ground and nodding absently, the way she sometimes did when Brennan spoke about a case, and Cam was trying to help solve it. "Why do you ask?" she finally looked up and was surprised to see _something_ on his face. She couldn't place her finger on it though. His mouth opened, closed and opened again.

"I need the advice," he finally confessed hoarsely. Stepping aside, he yanked open the door and propelled Cam into Angela's smug and waiting arms. Cam looked back but he was gone. She looked at Angela in confusion.

"I thought you went back to the lab." Angela looked at her both soberly and furiously.

"You don't get off that easily." Groaning, Cam allowed herself to be towed to her car.


	10. It Bottoms Out

**I know this took forever, but I had to drum up what I knew of Angela/Cam interactions - which aren't much, to my surprise. Reviews are awesomesauce on chicken nuggets. Hello. I also went back and fixed all those horrible little inconsistencies (there wasn't really as many as I thought) that have cropped up as usual in serial writing. Cam is firmly 15 weeks pregnant. 3 months and 3 weeks - 4 months all around. We're all good here.**

* * *

"Well," hinted Cam not so subtly, "thanks again for riding home with me." She didn't _quite_ ask if she could call Angela a cab – she wasn't _that_ desperate.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Angela silkily, raising goosebumps on Cam's skin. "I'm staying."

"The night?" squeaked Cam.

"If that's what it takes," said Angela firmly. Her tone and glare brooked no argument. As much as Cam had wanted someone to intervene in her life and finally _see_ what was going on with her, in reality it was highly unpleasant. Cam didn't know how to respond, and so decided to ignore the comment.

"Well," she began unwillingly, casting around for a takeout menu, "I guess if you're staying. Do you want to go out and eat? Or order takeout?" Angela shrugged carelessly.

"Sure. If that's what you need." Cam shivered again. Angela had the uncanny habit of saying what she truly meant/accused instead of the polite overtone most people employed.

"Um." Cam blindly thrust the menus at her. "You choose. I don't care." Angela gave her such an intense glance of scrutiny that Cam blushed to the roots of her hair, wondering if her meaning could be construed in more than one way.

"You sure?"

"You're the pregnant one," snapped Cam, and stopped, horrified, at her close confession. Angela, however, seemed to have missed the comment and was instead perusing the menu of a Chinese restaurant.

"You got anything for me to wear?" asked Angela absently, running her finger down the list of dishes.

"I…" Cam was bewildered at Angela's steadfast interest in staying _put_. All night. She closed her gawping mouth. "Sure. I'll go change."

Cam rifled through her drawers, her head whirling. She pulled out comfortable sweatpants that hid her frame and declined her usual skin tight shirt in favor for a loosely cut Manhattan college inter city softball jersey. It was years old, but faded and pretty. For Angela, she plucked out some soft silky pajama bottoms someone had given her as a joke about her femininity that Cam had fallen (guiltily) in love with. Angela was already wearing her own tank top. She quickly changed and also pulled a blanket out of her closet and glanced at the clock and groaned. It felt like evening, or even night; it was hardly three thirty.

She was still ravenous. Two crackers indeed.

Flocking to the kitchen, Cam brought out two sodas; glancing longingly at the empty wine bottle Felicia had sloppily left by her sink drain. Cam hastily threw that into the recycling bin lest Angela get the wrong idea.

"Chinese okay?" Angela threw out at her as Cam came back into the living room, silk bottoms over one arm looking more comfortable than Angela's high heeled boots and patterned sheer hose that still looked somehow classy.

"Fine," Cam said. She felt so awkward and clumsy. Her childish outfit in face of Angela's beautiful one and her unreadable expression made her feel like her life was spiraling out of control. Little did Angela know their positions were very similar. They worked in the same field, even the same job. They were close to the same number of months pregnant (though Cam, with quick and surprised calculations), realized she was most probably a month or more ahead of Angela. Yet Cam felt like she was drowning. She wondered if she was even capable of getting up in the morning, much less doing her work. She had been slaving so much for the past months; her results were finally coming back and not paying off. Cam- not crying, not quite – but crushed, was receiving reports that her work was second rate. Without her lab family, she wasn't special at all. As if that's what she needed on top of everything else. She had devoted her entire self and life to her work, only to be told that wasn't even good enough.

Cam sunk next to Angela on the couch with a soda, and carefully shuttered her face. Cam, though not often given credit, was just as adroit at understanding the undercurrents of emotion – just not her own. She had been the first to guess about Angela's pregnancy, astounding Angela so much, she had dropped a cracker right off her tongue. Similarly, she had accused Booth, without so much as a word said to her about it, about his big failed Rico bust when Jared had spoiled it. She had intervened when Brennan was going after Jared, dazzled by his falsity. She had cut to the heart of the matter when Booth had gone to her with questions about his feelings for his partner with the casual dimpled smile and immediate, _You're in love with Dr. Brennan._ She was very smart with the interns – even going so far back as with Zack, noticing his oddities and winning him over. Now, Clark, Fisher and especially Wendell – _stupid boy,_ she berated mentally – all doted on her, not to mention the other interns save perhaps Daisy, whom she could not stand.

Both women sat in silence; Cam at first lost in thought, and Angela in smug smirking refusal to begin.

"Can we order?" Cam finally begged. "I haven't eaten all day." She didn't even mention yesterday.

"Sure." Angela took care of it. Cam felt cowardly that she was so relieved that Angela had called for her and dealt with irritating customer service.

They sat in silence again. Angela reluctantly cracked because Cam had first.

"Hitch! God I love this movie!" Cam didn't have the heart to say anything, and steeled herself for the third time. It wasn't as if she preferred talking. "Bet you've already seen it though," said Angela, surprising her. "It's sitting out and all."

"Yes," said Cam, smiling into her soda, "I watched it with Felicia."

Angela let the silence reign triumphantly. Cam stared at the floor. She knew Angela was staring at her. The shaking quiet between them, humming like the last stray notes tingling along a piano chord, the sound long since died away, but the dust still unsettled by the vibrations, sucked the very oxygen out of the air. Cam looked down and felt her eyes begin to swim and the room begin to spin, the blackness stinging the corners of her vision. The ticking of the clock was louder than her heart, and while it stayed steady, her heart was thundering like a herd of horses.

Still no one spoke.

"What do you want me to say?" Cam finally begged. Angela looked at her in surprise, seemingly taken aback at Cam's sudden change in tone. Cam resolutely stared at the ground.

"You don't have to say anything."

"Let's just get this over with," snapped Cam. She took a breath.

"Do you resent me?" Angela asked, squinting her eyes at Cam as she stood up and began unzipping her uncomfortably tight boots. Cam's eyes flew to her face.

"_What?"_ She was completely dumbfounded. "No! What makes you-"

"You're not unhappy," Angela continued as if Cam hadn't spoken, slowly peeling her shirt up towards her shoulders and sliding her thumbs into the waistband of her tights, "that Hodgins and I are married?"

"Angela, I _want_ you two to be happy. You're my friends."

"Friends share," snapped Angela, losing her composure for a split second and teetering on one precarious foot as she wrestled out of her sheer tights. Cam grabbed her elbow to steady her.

"Don't fall," she gasped. Angela, mouth open to retort, instead sank slowly into a chair, ashen and trembling under Cam's stiff fingers.

"Oh God," she breathed, one leg in and one out of her tights, undressing forgotten as she stared at nothing. "If I fell…oh God I didn't think. What if I…" her eyes looked up at Cam. "What if I lost the baby? What if I just did what you did? What if I just fell down the stairs and hurt it irrevocably?" Angela didn't know what she was doing, but Cam felt herself freeze. She hadn't thought of that –how fucked up she might have already made this baby. She had definitely drank. And smoked. And fallen…several times.

"Oh God," breathed Cam. Angela squeezed her fingers in thanks for the sympathy. Cam didn't bother correcting her; she was already beyond horrified. "No," Cam shook her head firmly, forcing herself to look at Angela. "No, that wouldn't happen. That _hasn't_ happened. No."

"Hasn't it though?" asked Angela, her eyes far away. "Like you said – I _am_ the pregnant one but I've been playing it like I'm not. I've been basically ignoring it and bitching at the symptoms but oh God…." Angela wrapped her arms around herself. "There's a baby in there," she sobbed happily and Cam, bewildered and stunned, gathered poor Angela into her arms as she sobbed happily.

"There is a baby in there," Cam echoed.

They were interrupted by the ring of the door bell and Cam went to answer it, shaken and confused. She retreated slowly back into the room with the translucent bags digging cruel grooves into the pads of her fingers.

"Here," said Angela, digging through her purse and shoving money into her fingers. "For my share." Cam took it numbly, too drained to even protest.

Snapping open chopsticks and cracking open a container with a snap of plastic, Angela waved her chopsticks in Cam's direction as Cam sank into the couch next to her and opened her own food.

"So what's this? What's going on with you?" Cam shrugged self consciously.

"I'm just really tired."

"Bullshit."

"What do you want me to say?" Cam said in a level tone; her voice would have been nicer if she had snapped. Angela glanced sidelong at her.

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"I don't know," said Cam sarcastically. "Maybe because everyone _left_. Everyone. You know how completely _horrible_ my life has been for the past seven months?"

Angela's face crumpled in sympathy.

"That bad huh?"

"Worse," said Cam grimly. She set her jaw as she chewed. "And I thought.." she started but levered her jaw shut again.

"You thought…" probed Angela.

"I don't know," sighed Cam. "I thought it would be better when you all came home."

"And it's not?"

"No." Cam leaned back against the couch cushions, appetite gone. "It's worse." Angela didn't say anything but leaned back and put her arm around her and then coquettishly put both of her legs across Cam's lap. Cam laughed a little and dropped her face into Angela's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," said Angela sincerely. "You've been hurting and we haven't noticed."

"The Tony thing?" winced Cam. "Oh…it's fine."

"It's not."

"It's been a long, long time Angela."

"I don't think you can ever get over that," sympathized Angela firmly.

"But why this year?" fumed Cam. "I get that letter and I…" she felt her throat close up and turned her face towards the floor.

"I'm so, so sorry," whispered Angela into the skin of her neck and Cam felt her skin ripple with goosebumps. Angela wedged herself even more firmly around Cam and squeezed her tightly and Cam, to her horror, sobbed a little. For someone to finally just _hug_ her…

"Holy _SHIT!_" Angela leapt off the couch with an expression between being electrocuted and a heroin addict needing a hit. She spun around and stared accusingly at Cam. Cam was frozen, half folded in on herself, her expression as blank as Angela's was vicious.

"Holy shit! Oh God! Oh my God, oh my _God_!" Angela screeched, over and over while Cam was still frozen. Her face felt strange, as if molded from plaster. "You're _pregnant_! I felt the baby bump, I swear. That is not just fat. Or your stomach, or muscle or... Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy mother of God! It's there. It's so definitely there! Holy shit God mother _fucker!_" Cam stood to pacify Angela who was jumping in place like a spastic drenched cat. She opened her mouth but Angela beat her to the punch by raising a hand high over her head, quivering it threateningly. "Do not _lie_ to me," she seethed, still yelling. "If you lie to me, I swear to God I'll slap you. I will! I swear I will. Don't you even think of telling me that youre – "

"Pregnant," finished Cam wearily; "Okay, okay it's true." She gasped at the loud slap that rung in the air; it was too soon for pain, only the strange stinging sensation and Angela's horrified face. Her eyes welled of their own accord as the slap – Angela had put her weight behind it – reddened her cheek with a handprint.

"What did you do that for!" fumed Cam. "Jesus Angela!" Angela guiltily covered her mouth as if she could take it back.

"I'm sorry! I didn't actually think that I was _right!_ I thought that I was imagining it – I didn't think – I thought I was hallucinating or over reacting oh my _GOD! You're pregnant! _Who's the father?" Angela looked like she wanted to say more but rocked on her heels, restraining herself to listen to the million-dollar question's answer. She panted short breaths through her nose like an enraged teapot.

Cam's voice fell. "I don't know," she confessed. Angela's face lost it's color so fast Cam reflected briefly on the fact that the human body – given proper suction – can be drained of blood in eight seconds. "It's not what you think," Cam protested hastily, in a defeated tone. "It was a bar. He was a guy. Just a guy. This was all before the lab came back. I was…" She trailed off. _Lonely_ wasn't really the word.

"Hurting," finished Angela, with the uncanny habit of saying what she truly meant. "Do you know his name?" Cam shook her head once, quickly, feeling her neck muscles tighten painfully.

"But I don't want to," she sighed in explanation. "This is just between me and…" she sighed. She didn't know _what_ to think just yet.

"How far along are you?" Angela's questions were progressing in the sensible order. Cam still flinched.

"15 weeks."

"_WHAT?_ Three and a half _months_! Almost four. Cam! I can't even tell – you look exactly the same!" Cam laughed bitterly.

"Ha. I've put on weight."

"Where you skinny bitch," sulked Angela, looking Cam over.

"Six pounds!" protested Cam.

"_I've_ gained nine and I'm only 9 weeks pregnant." Angela looked sour. "At this rate I'll gain a pound a week until I've gained 40 pounds." Cam winced but gestured angrily at her body.

"Please Angela, I'm furious with myself. I thought I was just packing on the pounds; I can't even wear my dresses to work anymore. That's why I've been wearing pants this past week. _Look_!" Cam pulled her jersey up and pushed her abdomen out as far as it could go. There was a definite bump. She wrested the fabric down again, not looking at Angela. "I didn't know what to think. I thought I was just eating too much out of stress or…" Cam swallowed, and trailed off, frustrated, angry and fed up with emotions to even be able to speak past the guilty lump in her throat.

"Wait…" Angela sank back on the couch next to Cam. "When did you find out about this?" Cam chewed her lip, thinking.

"About an hour or so ago, when Cole told me." Angela let the first name basis slide.

"You didn't _know_? Oh God Cam, that is so hard. I just…I can't believe it. How could you _not_? All the signs – your period…"

"I'm on birth control and don't get periods every month anyway."

"The nausea…"

"Flu symptoms – the clam bake and food poisoning…"

"Oh my God," gasped Angela. "You're right – it also helps explain the fatigue, and how tired you've been looking all the time."

"What?" asked Cam, distracted in spite of herself.

"What, you think we didn't all notice?" asked Angela dryly. Cam didn't say anything but nodded numbly. Angela's face crumpled the tiniest bit.

"Oh sweetie…I'm so sorry." She draped herself back over Cam. "What about your mood swings? I'm still stuck on the fact that you didn't know…"

"I just…attributed it to you all coming back and Michelle leaving, getting ready for college… Of course…Tony…his death is hard enough every year _without_ me feeling like a pig after I gorged all the chocolate this year."

"So that's what that's for? I've noticed that you give out truffles around the same time every year, but I've never asked. Now I'm sorry I didn't. But how could you _not_ know Cam? There's a huge THING coming out the front of you."

"I wasn't thinking. I was...worried about other things," Cam said faintly. A few tears spilled over. "I'm sorry – it's just all so new- so fast- so-" Cam burst into tears. She angrily gestured at herself fending off Angela's outstretched arms for a hug. "I'm sorry," she sobbed. "God I don't even know _why_ I'm crying!"

"Yeah, ain't that a bitch," laughed Angela smugly. "That happens to me like twice a day. Poor Hodgins."

Cam laughed tearily; it was nice, almost to have a comrade in arms going through the exact same thing.

"You can't tell anyone," she sniffed, composing herself. "I swear Angela," she said, seeing Angela open her mouth and using her best boss tone, "if you do, I'll tell everyone about your baby."

"But everyone already knows," frowned Angela.

"But Hodgins doesn't know that." Cam knew she had scored a point, as did Angela. Her face fell.

"That's low." Cam said nothing but held fast; she knew Angela was right – it was a low blow – but Angela wasn't afraid of anything, and virtually indestructible. The only way to scare her into secrecy was through her weaker half.

"But what about when you start to show?"

"Let me worry about that," said Cam firmly. She put her head in her hands. "I don't know what I'm going to do, much less what I'm doing right now. Angela…" she dropped her voice to a whisper, too ashamed to look up. "Look. I'm living minute to minute. I'm lucky if I can make it through the next hour. At work I concentrate on getting through morning meetings. After that, I time myself for lunch. After that, for a break, and after that, I tell myself I can fall apart, if I can just make it those last few hours before I get back to the house. But then I have to greet Michelle and I have to make dinner. Then Michelle goes to bed. Only then can I finally let go, and by that time I'm too tired to do so. It takes _work_ to be this exhausted," Cam finished wanly. "So how can you expect me to think about next week, or next month when I can hardly think to the next day?"

Angela had grown very still and very silent, studying Cam intently. Cam didn't know what she saw there, and refused to look into those inscrutable brown eyes.

"You're a mess," she said flatly.

"I know," Cam said wearily.

"Like a bad mess."

"I know," Cam conceded.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Cam laughed, but her laughter died on her lips when she saw Angela's angry face. "This is what friends are for, you should have _called_ me in Paris."

"You were on your honeymoon."

"For a _year_," said Angela dryly. "I could have made time for you."

"Seven months," protested Cam.

"This isn't okay." Cam frowned when Angela gestured.

"You just gestured to all of me."

"Exactly." Angela sighed and scrubbed her face. Cam was suddenly inundated with guilt.

"This is why I didn't want to tell anyone," she snapped. Angela looked up. "Now I've needlessly complicated your life. Now you're worried. You _were_ happy. You _were _just fine. You weren't worried about me –"

"We were," Angela tried to interrupt, Cam steamrolled her.

"But you didn't know how much you needed to worry." She stopped, stymied. "That didn't come out right. But what I'm saying is that I've just made my problems expand into your world. There is absolutely no benefit in it for me. I don't feel better 'talking it out' in fact I feel worse," Cam stated flatly. "Because now I feel personally responsible for you and your baby and how you're looking at me right now." She pointed between Angela's eyes before she turned away, disgusted.

"But we _haven't_ talked about it," protested Angela. "We haven't even started."

"Why bother?" groaned Cam. "Look what scratching the surface did. I mean, why dig up all this ancient history and stir up old problems and feelings for some supposed benefit?"

"Supposed benefit?"

"I mean, people say bottling is wrong, but I mean, hell it's been a long time, it's been 20 years, I've dealt with it. Why bring it back up to 'resolve' it when I consider it resolved. Just because my way of dealing isn't everyone else's doesn't mean that mine is any less valuable."

"While that's true," said Angela patiently, "your actions are affecting other people. It's like you said. All of a sudden you've spilled over into other people's lives. Booth is about to skin himself for not seeing something wrong with you. Sweets is moping like a kicked puppy for 'failing as a psychologist.' Brennan is scandalized that it's gotten so bad that you can't separate your work and personal life. She's not mad at you sweetie, because hell knows her personal life has interfered way too much with her work life, but she finds it horrifying that something is _so_ wrong with you, that it would come to this."

"I know," Cam said weakly. She closed her eyes. "But everything will pass. The dust will settle."

"When?" Angela said loudly. She wasn't backing down. She couldn't let Cam try to smooth this one over when everything was so absolutely wrong with her friend. How long had people – herself included – been buying Cam's namebrand bullshit stories about being tired or sick or just in a funk when something had seriously been going wrong? "Look Cam, you're going to have this baby. You're past the point of no return."

"I've already fucked it up!" Cam found herself screaming the sentence she had tried rationally to say. She was sobbing again. She tried to restrain herself but to her terror, felt she couldn't. She felt her body seize up, her muscles cramping as she gestured. "Look at me! Look at me! I'm 4 months pregnant and I've already fucked this baby up. I've been drinking. I thought I was gaining weight so I've been smoking. I've fallen down the stairs. I've starved myself," Cam wanted to stuff cotton in her mouth for her stupid, stupid brain spewing her secrets. "I haven't slept well – I drink coffee not only three cups a day, but try six or seven. This baby …" she looked down at her stomach and slapped it. "Why even bother Angela?" she glanced up in tears as she realized Angela was holding both her wrists in a vice like grip. Angela, seven inches taller than her, clearly had the advantage; like with Dr. Hart, Cam realized how completely ineffectual her strength was. She went limp against Angela's firm shoulder. "I can't do this. I can't. It's hard enough but I've ruined any chance this person has. Jesus, it's a miracle I haven't miscarried. This kid will have a genetic syndrome. This kid will be retarded. This kid will be a parapalegic in a wheelchair or be breathing through a tube this kid – he'll be breathing through a tube – he'll be paralyzed – he'll sit there and laugh with me and I'll watch as he dies on the table – oh God," she sobbed. "Oh God, why did this happen to me? How could this happen twice? What if I've passed on...what if it...what if... How could he – he – he- "

For the second time that night, Cam lost her breath to the sound of a slap.

"I'm sorry," said Angela quietly, as Cam shook with repressed sobs. "I am. And I don't even know what's going on in that spiel. Because I'm pretty hella sure that that was not just about the baby." Cam said nothing; when Angela was sure she'd be silent, she continued. "But you need to tell someone. And maybe you shouldn't tell me. Maybe I'm not what you need. Maybe you need someone on the outside where you can be somebody else. You want to save face? Go dump your troubles outside the lab and come back. If you don't want to confide in us, you'll have to confide in someone. Because what just happened…that shouldn't happen. Not to a normal person."

Cam gave a strangled sound of protest between a laugh and a sob. Angela gave her a look.

"I can say that…" she said it quietly, "because I'm not normal either okay? But I have Hodgins. And Hodgins has me, and as for him – well, no one who's gone through the gravedigger can be considered normal. If you think about it, our whole lab is full of abnormal people who've been churned through the mill and been banged up pretty good. So don't feel out of place. But you need to talk to someone. Really, Cam." Cam took a huge, cleansing breath.

"I know," she said quietly. She looked down and wondered if it was true, what her hysterical ramblings had spewed: if the life inside of her was already ruined. _You take what you are given, and you make the most of it_, she reminded herself. Her mother's words echoed behind that train: _Use your words_.

"And if you can only think of tomorrow," said Angela, "then let's think of tomorrow. You're going to need some new clothes. I have no one else to drag along to maternity shopping," the glint of her smile was dangerous as Cam groaned even before she finished the sentence, "but now I do! Get dressed!"

Cam was secretly glad it had been Angela and not Booth; she was much less judgmental.


	11. In The Pink

**Hey guys, thanks to several helpful hints by the readers (and hopefully reviewers) I've gone back and corrected several inconsistencies. See previous author's note for an update. Anyways. After writing the Angela chapter (which was harder than labor I SWEAR) I've got the next several chapters all mapped perfectly out. So expect a rash of new chapters up but KEEP REVIEWING each one, so I feel like I'm that much cooler. Thanks guys for being such close readers and paying attention! It's flattering, not upsetting at all!**

* * *

It was noticeable. It had been a week since Angela's accost, but she had held true to her word and not breathed Cam's secret. Cam, in response to her meltdown, had been perusing the internet carefully for an OB/GYN to look after her prenatal care. Her meltdown had been completely inaccurate, but Cam had been so thrown by genetic disorders she had grabbed at every major one she could think of. She swallowed; she hoped he-or she- _the baby_ she corrected herself scathingly, frustrated with lack of gender– could forgive her. She had also started looking around the house to figure out which room could be converted into the nursery. Ideally she would have picked Michelle's room, but Michelle still lived there, and Cam knew how hard change was on her. It had only been her room for a year, after all, and Cam didn't have the heart to wrench the rug out from under her, so to speak.

In all probability the house, a one story modest but well furbished affair, would either have to do without the den and office Cam used religiously for working from home, or she'd have to move. She had voted for removing the den and reassembling her desk in the living room where the couch and TV opened into the kitchen. She would put it along the far wall behind the kitchen table and although the setup wasn't practical, it was what she could do. She knew she had to tell Michelle soon. There could be no hiding it in the coming weeks; she was already firmly 4 months pregnant – no one would be fooled for much longer, especially not with Cam's figure. There were always those reality shows about women not knowing they were pregnant until they were in labor because they were so morbidly obese nothing showed at all, but Cam was almost a wraith, though she felt lumbering and clumsy with her new weight. Now that she was eating well, her weight gain had stepped up to an even eight pounds. She knew as a doctor that was _nothing_ and in the second and third trimesters, she'd be putting on 1-2 pounds per week. She tried not to think about that; even now, the baby bump was a definite blemish on her usually flawless figure. She figured someone would have to be blind not to deduce it. Cam had taken to wearing winter coats around the lab, favoring sweat instead of ogling. She had also bought several loose fitting shirts with Angela at the maternity store, though she had taken to simply leaving the top button of her pants undone before she would be caught dead buying stretch band waists before she absolutely had to.

She had sought out a new, and female obstetrician. She was lucky; there had been a recent cancellation and the usual booking, which would have been at least three weeks – firmly placing Cam well on her way to five months by that point – had been replaced with an appointment the Monday morning before work started at 8:00 am. Cam had faxed over her medical history, the blood work from Dr. Hart and her previous gynecologist's information.

The waiting room was really quite well decorated. It had wrought iron chairs with blue fabric, brown rugs over brownstone tile, and a glass coffee table littered with family magazines and tabloids. That didn't make the waiting any easier. The frosted glass that led back to the examining rooms would ever so often swim with a pink scrubbed figure of a nurse and get Cam's hopes up. She was one of two patients; predictably, she was the second one called. Heart in throat, she walked with the dread of the condemned, as if she was on her way to the executioners block instead of the sonogram room.

The gel was cold but the baby's heartbeat was strong and healthy. Cam cried on the spot and clasped grateful hands with the nurse to her right. When the doctor came in, a woman perhaps 15 years her senior, Cam confessed her entire story in a brief 5 minute span, and enjoyed watching the doctor's reactions and loud exclamations. By the end of 10 minutes, the two were fast, if casual, friends. Cam knew that there was no absolute ruling out genetic disorders in the fetus, nor ruling out any mental disorders, but she was cautiously hopeful. The baby's development was normal and in good shape.

"Babies and amniotic fluid were designed to take a few bumps and bruises," smiled the doctor, "or else no woman would ever get anything done!" Cam, feeling greatly relieved but by no means completely guiltless, left the office breathing a sigh of relief, and wondering if she wanted to know the sex (which she could expect to know by next month), or keep it a surprise. She thought briefly of the nursery she'd have to paint - she wanted to know what color she should buy.

She left the office, which was located on the private sector of the hospital, and strode happily to her car feeling as if that 10 minute confession had done wonders for her tortured soul. She only wished it was that easy to tell her lab family. Or worse – her biological one.

"Heeeeeey!" She spun around when the loud voice careened into her ear drum. Cole Hart had snuck up on her and had blown childishly in the soft shell of her ear. She smacked him before she could help herself. She then berated herself forcibly not to make any sort of contact; it only encouraged him.

"It's my two favorite people!" Cam looked behind her out of reflex, completely bewildered by his statement. The parking lot was empty in the chilly November morning air. She hoped he wouldn't detain her – she was going to be late to work, even though she had called in ahead of time to inform Brennan she was at the OB/GYN. Brennan had been sweet about it. Cam absently reminded herself that she and Brennan needed to have lunch sometime, just the two of them. Obviously Brennan and Angela weren't confiding about the slightly stunned expression Brennan was constantly wearing, nor her reversion to her younger days when she guarded her heart so ferociously, she spewed logic and jargon in place of actual information.

"Your _two_ favorite people?" Cam raised her eyebrow.

"Yeah, it's Little Miss Fireball," he gestured towards her, "and," he bent his head down towards her purse and addressed her abdomen, "her son Spitfire."

"You could be wrong you know."

"Know what?"

"It could be a girl."

"No. It's a boy."

"You can't know that," she smiled.

"I'm going to guess it," he boasted confidently, "because you just look like a boy kind of girl." He stopped, mouth open, before looping his finger by his ear around his still bruised eyebrow from their literal run in. "Yeah…That went better in my head."

Cam hissed a laugh. "I can tell."

He grinned. "I was about to call you!" Cam shook her head, rolling her eyes. His distance had both hurt a little but pleased her. He had taken her advice; she hadn't completely lost her touch when she had warned him away. She felt confident talking to him, knowing they could be friends.

"No you weren't."

"No seriously," he brandished two tickets in front of her face. She obligingly tilted her head to read the fine print.

"You and me – tonight 8 o'clock. We have a date."

"We do?" She squinted to make sure she was reading the tickets right before she gasped in envy. "How did you get these? The Capitols have been sold out for _ages_! And how did you know hockey is my favorite?" Cole waved cavalierly.

"You look like a sporty kind of girl – the kind that doesn't take crap, you know. Let me guess - you probably listened to 80s and 90s boy bands and angsty girl rock and you were the only non lesbian on the softball team."

"It was track," said Cam primly. He laughed.

"Really now? But you're so short! What'd ya race?"

"The mile," she confessed but laughed self-consciously. "Actually you're right – I went out for hurdles but failed miserably. There was this huge human pile up." She raised her hand guiltily. "My fault." Cam sighed and eyed the tickets lustfully. The look wasn't lost on Dr. Hart who was laughing at her short but likeable anecdote. "I can't _believe_ you have tickets to tonight's game."

"Well," he said shrugging, "I cut someone important open – I'm a neuro surgeon and whatnot – so they sent me these as a thank you."

"Well that explains it," scoffed Cam.

"What?" He wasn't offended – he, like Booth – enjoyed her rancor.

"The neuro surgeon bit."

"What do you mean?"

"It totally explains the _ego_!" she goaded. His face took on a smug look.

"God moding," he chuckled knowingly. "It's a trip. But seriously angel, you and me, we're going. But dinner first. Six o'clock. There are some people I want you to meet."

"Uh oh," teased Cam, but secretly worried, "That sounds serious."

"No nothing too much. I'm just doing what you wanted." Cam blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"Simple, easy. You wanted the basics, girl and boy – and there's nothing better. I wouldn't spring anything on you so soon darling. It's our first real date you know." Cam dimpled at him, eyes glittering.

"I haven't said yes yet."

"Oh but you will," he yawned confidently.

"Maybe I wont." She gave him a bland face to match her blasé tone.

"But you will," his smile grew devilish. "Because I have something you want…" his coyote grin accentuated his hand as Cam watched, mouth dry as he dragged the tickets down his sculpted body towards the button of his jeans.

"That's disgusting," she informed him, yanking her eyes up, blushing the slightest when he raised his eyebrows, asking silently if she liked the show.

"I don't know what you're saying," he said innocently. His face was anything but. "I was just scratching; my sweater itches."

"Wow. Scratching an itch? Really?" He immediately backpedalled and opened his mouth but seemed to change his mind, and instead leaned forward into her face. "Just what are you trying to do angel, make me blush? Get your mind outta the gutter." His Boston brogue was more charming than he knew. Maybe not - he was insufferable, that one.

"ME!" Cam couldn't even muster words.

"I'm telling you," he continued like the tangent never happened, "you and me, dinner at six o'clock, we'll go out for burgers, watch a little hockey, meet some new people. Simple. American class," he winked.

"What should I wear?" The question sprung out of her mouth before she could retract it. His face cocked at that 45 degree tilt as he took in her body at one sweep before licking his lips. Cam raised her hand to punch his arm like she would Booth, but dropped it. He was absolutely incorrigible.

"Oh, don't worry about it doll- be casual. It's burgers and a hockey game– the people you're meeting aren't coming to the game. And you really don't have to impress them. I just want to play it straight with you. You said no secrets."

"No I didn't," she said, raising her eyebrows. He scuffed his foot, suddenly shy and his four year old demeanor now adorable rather than irritating as he looked bashfully at the asphalt, hands stuck deep in pockets of a leather coat over his scrubs.

"Well, I know so much about you. I just thought we should even the playing field a bit. Play it straight and narrow so you know what _you_ are getting into." Cam's face drained of blood. She was so stupid not to have seen this coming.

"Oh God - you're married."

"I'm not," he countermanded.

"Okay…" Cam bit her lip. "Jeans. Burgers." Her agreement was tentative.

"Simplest is best," he agreed. "Oh and we'll do the whole first date thing later – you know, get to know you over some –" he stopped, looking as if he were going to continue but closed his mouth, and rubbed his chin with a hand, smiling ferociously.

"What?" asked Cam suspiciously.

"I was going to say that we can get to know each other over some light beer but…" Cam sighed. _Right_. She jerked her chin up.

"And what if I say no?"

He grinned wickedly, as if he had just been waiting for her to say that. He stepped far too close to her body, and grabbed her shoulders with both big hands – his eyes glinted like storm clouds in the morning-overcast sky. "Well then, I guess I'll just have to manhandle you until you say yes."

"I was a cop," she reminded him. She declined to mention the effect he was having on her heartbeat. This was neither the time nor the place. It probably wouldn't be a good time or place for the next 18 years or so. He laughed silently, teeth flashing at her pitiful comeback.

"And I play with peoples heads," he reminded her. Cam blushed, the two of them were too close and for propriety's sake, she tried to back up.

"Uh, uh, uh," he clucked, "no leaving until you agree. Come out with me. Hockey – your favorite. You said so."

"That's not fair," Cam said, trying not to let the hint of a whine creep in. "You're forcing me to say yes. You know as well as I that I couldn't break away if I tried." Eyebrows went up over silver eyes.

"Nobody's forcing nobody."

"Great English there slick," she mocked, "and you _are_ forcing me – you're in my space."

"You think this is in your space," he laughed darkly enough for her to shiver. She protested silently that it was the cold air. "This is a public setting slim – I can't make this too risqué." Cam blushed again when she realized one of his thumbs was overlaying the hollow of her neck, perfectly able to feel every beat of her heart, and her lies pounding through her veins.

"Fine yes, whatever," she sulked. "If that'll make you happy." He released her in an instant, a radiant smile wreathing his face like Christmas lights that had suddenly been plugged in. His eyes lightened by two shades and he laughed and hugged her quickly. Cam found herself reluctantly smiling at his innocent self-congratulations. He pointed both fingers at her, miming shooting two guns.

"I gotta go. I've got surgery."

"You weren't prepping!" She screeched. He should have at least been reviewing the files.

"Full hearts are better than full heads," he chorused.

"You are _insane_," she said flatly as he spun, laughing and whisked through the automatic doors into the surgical part of the hospital, leaving her to pace the last few steps to her car. Her phone buzzed in her hand, and she looked down, nonplussed to see his name and simply:

"WORD."

Looking around and feeling guilty for even texting the brash idiot back, she quickly keyed, "Huh?"

She laughed out loud as she got into her car, on her way back to the house to pick up an outfit for later as her phone buzzed one last time.

"I always have to have the last word."


	12. Keep It Simple Stupid

**So much Cole, but don't worry, angst will crop up again in the next chapter. Cam's life is never this good anyways, am I right?**

* * *

"Felicia!" said Cam cheerily as she answered her phone at the stoplight. She was dressed casually, but as Angela had deduced with flair, devastatingly. Her jeans had buttoned with a little restraint, but they were so low riding, it wasn't much of a problem to snap them shut under the baby bump. Her top wasn't the usual tight fitting one Cam would have flaunted with inherent pride. It was a shimmering silver grey _thing_ Angela had picked out in their shopping spree, after explaining they were trying to keep her pregnancy a surprise to the shopkeeper. It was several grey pieces that hugged her curves and it was a sleeveless tank top that scintillated in the light. She had a loose belt around it and there was honestly no way to tell she was pregnant at all. For the hockey game, Cam had shrugged quickly into a black leather jacket, making the outfit edgier and less feminine.

Felicia's voice was hesitant, and when Cam remembered how they had parted, she felt a pang of regret.

"Camille? I have something to tell you."

"What's wrong Lisey?" asked Cam, heart in throat.

"I borrowed some money," she confessed.

"From who?" asked Cam cautiously.

"From you!" Felicia seemed surprised Cam didn't know. "It was left out on your kitchen table…" Cam's face immediately cleared as she turned the corner.

"Oh yeah, I saw that. I thought Michelle had taken it!" She had left Michelle $50 on the table to go shopping with her friends.

"No," Felicia's voice was relieved as if she had confessed the greatest sin on earth. "I took it. I'm sorry. I really needed the money Cammie."

"Don't worry about it," soothed Cam. "You're my sister. I know you'll pay me back."

"When I can," agreed Felicia. "So you're sure you're not mad?" Cam realized she was a little early in the parking lot. Her phone beeped with another call as she slid into a spot, her heart suddenly pounding. She glanced at the screen. Her other call was Cole. She couldn't remember the last time she had been this nervous for a date. Not for 10 years at least.

"Lisey – I gotta go. I have another call on the line. It's fine. Take the time you need. I'm sorry we didn't get to spend more time together." It was easier to be kind to Felicia from far away. Cam ignored the fact she had been greatly relieved by Felicia's quick stay.

"Okay," said her sister, suddenly cheerful. "You're the best! I love you!"

"Love you," said Cam absently.

"Wow, so we _are_ crossing all the lines," said a masculine voice. Cam, horrified, yanked the phone from her ear and realized Felicia had hung up on her, leaving her last line in the other call.

"Cole?" she asked cautiously.

"Who else were you expecting?"

"I was on the phone with my sister," she laughed. Her heart was beating a little too fast. "Are you already here?"

"Yeah, I saw you drive by to park and called you. I need some help unloading my car. Could you come around the side of the building and help me out?"

"Sure?" Her voice was unsure and he laughed. "Is this some creepy come on Dr. Hart? How do I know you won't take shameless advantage of me?"

"Do I scare you that much?" he laughed loudly. "Naw, I'm serious. The people I want you to meet are with me. I wouldn't do that in front of them." Cam blushed as she exited her car.

"I really hope I'm not on speakerphone."

"No worries," she could actually _hear_ him grin cheekily. "You totally are." Cam groaned and hung up when she saw a very fine pair of glutes encased in perfect dark levi jeans leaning into the back seat of a BMW suv. He made eye contact with her through the back window and waved cheerily, pulling out and standing up gruffly.

"Hold this will ya?" He thrust something surprisingly heavy into her arms while he jogged around to the other back seat to repeat the process. Cam, bemused, looked at what he handed her. To her utter surprise it was a baby. A toddler.

It was a girl, and she didn't look more than two years old, probably younger. Her hair was shaggy, just past the bowl cut that most infants had and it was jet black and glossy, with little lilac bows on each side of sloppily braided pigtails. Cam had to smile while fingering one knowing Cole had braided them himself. The baby had almond shaped dark brown eyes, a very exotic Polynesian looking face with pretty and smooth skin not too different in shade than Cam's own. She waved chubby baby arms out of a matching purple outfit with a pony on it. Cam noticed it was Ralph Lauren Polo. The toddler grinned at Cam, squealing a baby squeal and showed a few pearly white teeth.

Cam, her jaw completely unhinged, looked up at Cole in surprise. He was busy standing back up, cooing while her mouth dried seeing thick biceps flexing while he hoisted _another_ baby, this one a few months younger, into the air while it – another she- burbled with glee, waving chubby arms. The baby in Cole's arms had a different complexion, but not too noticeably varied. Whereas the brown hue of skin that belonged to the toddler in Cam's arms was cooler and creamier, the younger girl had reddish tan skin that had been diluted with white. Her hair too, was jet black and glossy, still in the bowl cut of most infants. She had a little yellow bow on top of her head and was dressed in expensive baby jean overalls with a yellow daisy on both back pockets.

He looked up at her with a huge smile on his face, not the least bit uncomfortable with her shock. "These are my girls," he beamed.

"Your…" Cam faltered, completely at a loss.

"You asked if I was married - I'm not."

"Divorced?" Cole stared soberly at her.

"Widower." Cam swallowed hard. She remembered when he had asked her how she had coped…she didn't ask and he didn't offer. They walked towards the door. Cam looked at the child who's clinging to her.

"Who are you?" She asked her politely. The child sucked her thumb.

"That's my darling candy Andie."

"Andy?"

"It's short for Andrea."

"Your wife was-" she shut her mouth, not sure how to politely ask what races Andie was obviously a composite of.

"No Andie here was adopted. She's 18 months. My gem Jade-" there was a brief spasm of pain across his face, "– that was my wife…"

"Was…" Cam felt the bitch asking, but was honestly curious.

"She…" Cole cleared his throat, suddenly subdued and eighty-four instead of his usual four year old personality, "died in childbirth, not that this is at all a pleasant first date topic," he threw over his shoulder as they were shown to their table. There were two baby chairs already set up. Cam felt her face shutter inwards as she politely didn't ask, and concentrated on not dropping Andie as she settled her into the chair to Cam's right, and took the seat across from Cole as he settled his other daughter. He looked up as if he felt he needed to add at least another thing.

"She passed on from complications during our biological daughter's birth…" Cole swallowed, looking at his other daughter out of the corner of his eye. "We can talk about it later –" when Cam opened her mouth he interrupted. "I don't like talking about it in front of these two – they're sharper than tacks they are." Some of his joking tone came back. Cam nodded a tight nod in understanding and moved back onto better ground.

"Andie is adopted? From where?"

"The Philippines. You see, Jade was told she was barren. We tried – a lot," he laughed self deprecatingly at a memory Cam didn't understand. "But she just couldn't get pregnant. So we looked around for adoption, and fell in love when we visited the Philippines. We never expected to get a baby so fast. Then - to our utter surprise - Jade gets pregnant!" His face, to Cam's careful scrutiny, was both joyful and terrible with the memory. "We were so happy. A few weeks later we were informed our adoption cleared. We went to pick up Andie as a baby – only two weeks old – when Jade was already three months pregnant." He shook his head self deprecatingly. "All of a sudden we had two daughters instead of none! And wouldn't you know they are only six months apart!"

He stroked his other daughter's hair thoughtfully and correctly interpreted (to Cam's mortification) her unspoken question and after a pause, continued relating his young wife to her. "See, Jade was full blooded Sioux and she left her reservation to get a good education. We were at Georgetown together. We met…you know…we fell in love." He seemed to say this last sentence with a flavor of cynicism Cam wasn't a stranger to. Booth and Jared had often said things in the same voice. She knew she had. Her mouth still dropped.

"You went to Georgetown?"

"Yes I did," he beamed, "Why?" Hope flitted across his face. "Did you?" Cam didn't know what her face told him but she watched as his grey eyes flickered open in alarm.

"No…no…" she laughed self deprecatingly, "Not this one. My dad did though. He always wanted us to…one of us I mean…" she fumbled. He picked up her thread easily, the way his irritating charisma allowed him.

"You mean your brother?" Cam nodded a little bit.

"Dad wanted Tony to first...but then later me I guess, but it just didn't work out. Those teenage years were just pretty hard all around." She was summing up the understatement of the year. Although she was positive Cole was much more broken up than he allowed her to see. She changed the subject when she yelped.

"Who's this?" Cam cooed, as her hair was yanked by a tight little fist. She stared into large infant eyes and swallowed, entranced. The eyes of his other daughter weren't the deep brown she would have expected. They were a dark and tumultuous color. Dark grey? The baby shifted and the light glinted off the irises; or were they blue as deep as sapphires? Or even dark violet? She couldn't tell. Cole's voice swelled with pride, but Cam noticed he didn't favor either of his daughters over the other.

"This is pretty Kitty – she's a half blood Sioux. It explains the skin of these two, since most people stare openly at a white guy like me," he laughed. "At least they got my hair right? It's dark enough. I mean, they look more at home with you than me." He shrugged, and looked uncomfortable. "I don't even know what you are! I'm sorry," he apologized immediately, red suffusing his tanned features, "that was really rude." Cam laughed.

"It really wasn't. I get that all the time. I'm a halfsie. My mom was Black and my dad white."

"Nice," he smirked. Cam blushed charmingly. "I wouldn't have guessed that," he confessed. "You just look so..."

"Different?" she guessed drolly.

"I would have said unique," he laughed. "Exotic. Something pretty." Cam put her hands to her cheeks.

"Stop it, you're just trying to embarass me."

"Please," waved Cole. "You and I are vain enough to know we're both beautiful people." Cam's mouth dropped open in surprise as she uttered a cry, fumbling for a protest she couldn't provide. It was true.

"You're right," she sighed, a smile tugging at her full lips over perfect teeth. "I'm terribly vain." She looked back at his daughter Kitty.

"What's her name short for? Or is it just Kitty?"

"Katarina. Jade...she liked the name. She wanted to...she picked it." He stopped and the pain was so laced in his voice, Cam turned her eyes away out of respect so he wouldn't accuse her of pity.

"It's a beautiful name," she assured him. "Much nicer than Camille."

"Come off it," he joked, his Boston brogue back on. They teased each other for half a minute before Cam gestured back at Kitty, letting Andie clasp her finger happily and shake it so vigorously, Cam thought her arm would pop out of its socket.

"How old is she?" Cole stroked his daughters' hair, accidentally teasing the bow out of it. He looked down at it in surprise.

"A year," he nodded thoughtfully as he carefully tried to clip the bow back into the weaving baby's hair.

"A year." Cam's echo was the time since his wife's death. He nodded tightly but smiled for his girls. She understood then, why he got her so quickly; he knew exactly what she was going through because this was the hardest time of year for him as well.

"When's her birthday?" Cole's face looked like she had slapped him but swallowed.

"Halloween, isn't that cute pretty Kitty?" Cam turned her face away, feeling she had put her foot into it. He shook his head as if clearing it of water, and he came back as he beamed at his girls, handing them each a straw the waiter had dropped off with their drinks, silently acknowledging their serious conversation by not asking for their order.

"They're my whole life. Which is why, nothing about you and yours-" he gestured half under the table but Cam understood, "-can really scare me." She avoided the opening to talk about her life. She hated doing that.

"They're so close in age!" she smiled instead.

"They'll like it when they're older – I used to think it was a pain to be 9 months from my brother James but now I love it. We used to pull the twins stunt _all_ the time – fraternal of course - but we were in the same grade and everything – just like Kitty and Andie here will be."

"Brother?" Cam asked, raising her eyebrows. Cole laughed, a blush actually tinging his cheeks. "Dr. Hart," drawled Cam, "I do believe you are blushing." He seemed more ill at ease on the date with his girls but Cam understood. He was offering her the most painful part of his life to look at. Hell, Cam would be gibbering under the table – oh wait, she had done that. She offered him some humor to ease the tension.

"Yeah," he scratched his jaw. "I'm one of seven."

"Seven!" exclaimed Cam with no shortage of actual surprise.

"Good Catholic family," laughed Cole. "But I'm not Catholic," he hurried to inform her. "It was just too hard."

"It was too hard," Cam repeated, her smile a mile wide. She laughed and looked up as the waiter came to take their order.

"Five boys, two girls," nodded Cole.

"And you are…"

"Number four."

"Wow," admired Cam in a tone that was thick with sarcasm. They made small talk and chatted and teased French fries off each other's plates and fed them to the children. There was a pregnant pause in the conversation that Cam finally breached with a serious voice.

"That's why you were mad at me, when you thought I was going to…" Cam cleared her throat, finally confessing aloud her suspicions. "…Take care of it."

"I would give _anything_ to have been able to save Jade." His face flooded with guilt as he looked at his daughter. "Almost anything," he amended. He looked up at the door.

"Oh excellent. My savior is here!"

"Dr. Hart," said an elderly Chinese lady politely. Cole stood to usher her towards Cam, beaming as he held both her shoulders. She stood stiffly.

"Call me Cole please, Sally please. We've been over this. Cam, this here is Sally. She's a lifesaver. Seriously. She is the best nanny you could find." Sally shrugged, her face inscrutable as she lifted Kitty who had opened her arms in glee towards her nanny.

"Dr. Hart," said the woman stiffly, "I only stay until midnight."

"I'll be home," he hastily exclaimed, looking in alarm towards Cam. "No of course, I won't be out carousing," he joked. She didn't smile but Cam blushed, and stuffed her mouth full of French fries.

"I'll make sure Cinderella leaves the ball in time," Cam said with a straight face. Sally finally cracked a smile as Cole mumbled in embarrassment.

"Here, I'll help you get them in the car," he informed the nanny. "Wait here," he instructed Cam. Cam nodded, content to order a milkshake and stealthily hand her credit card to the waiter with the check. Hell, Cole had got the tickets. She wasn't above sneaking behind his back to surprise him.

She looked up when the waiter tapped her politely on the shoulder.

"Ma'am, your card has been declined."

"What?" she shook her head. "You must be mistaken. It's fine."

"Perhaps, but we ran it twice. It says your account is overdrawn."

"That's…" stuttered Cam, mortified and beet red, "that's awkward."

"What are you doing?" Cole barked and Cam jumped. Cole smoothly handed a piece of plastic to the young man and waved him away. "Doll," he said severely, resuming his seat across from her, "You're making me look bad. Don't do that anymore."

"I'm independent," she snapped pettily.

"You're insulting me," he waved cavalierly. "Let me be an ass and steamroll all your feminist ideas." Cam laughed in genuine embarrassment and secret pleasure. Damn that man.

"Your daughters are beautiful," she told him honestly. "And I think-" she bit her lip as he signed the receipt. He was too sharp sometimes, because his head snapped up as if he scented her falter more than heard it. His eyes were silvery sharp and his face intense, back into the coyote.

"Think what angel?" Cam took a deep breath, sucked in and ploughed ahead into turf she wasn't sure she was good at.

"It's very…brave…of you…to be out…with me…when…" she faltered and died off, too awkward to go on.

"Thank you darling," he drawled but his face was serious. "I actually hadn't planned on it. You just…hit me out of nowhere. Literally. You dropped in front of my feet like a little rag doll and then I knew it was a sign."

"A sign?" she asked skeptically. He laughed, as if the story was the most hilarious thing in the world. He gestured towards the sky as he politely held the door for her. "I'll drive," he murmured. "I'll get you back to your car." He threaded his arm through hers and laughed again. "I first met Jade when she dropped to her knees at a party and vomited all over my shoes. She had been taken shameless advantage of and had way too much to drink."

"Oh my God," chuckled Cam in mortification.

"And a couple nights ago I had a dream that Jade was yelling at me for having my head up my ass and not in my family," he confessed ruefully. "Then all of a sudden I meet you – and you're this scrappy little heroine - saving kids from car accidents, too on fire to even _look _at me, and hell I know I'm a good looking guy. And you're cussing me out and giving me the general hide licking I needed to bring my arrogant ass out of the clouds. So I asked you out," he shrugged. "Imagine my surprise when you said _no_! You crawled all over my life and then high tailed it out of there like you didn't care for me one whit. And here I was panting to know your name. God it was like college again, and you were all broken and proud and as cool as glass."

"What a wonderful first impression," Cam mumbled in mortification into her jacket as she let him help her up into the front of the suv. She blushed as he turned on the car heater as she shivered. "I should warn you…" she said unwillingly and his face lit up, recognizing her teasing tone. "I'm a _rabid_ hockey fan."

"Excellent," he beamed.

The night was perfect; the date was perfect and he dropped her off at her car with a sweet smile.

There was no kiss.


	13. What Goes Up Must Come Down

Cam knew, intellectually, that the towel she was sobbing into was in all likelihood not very clean. Despite it being from the pile of folded rags in the little supply closet, she could smell the faint smell of ammonia where the terrycloth had whisked over lab surfaces one too many times. This was becoming a very bad habit.

Her date with Cole had been a dream, but cashing her payday check the next day had not; she had been mildly concerned about being overdrawn but upon calling her bank, had been assured all her money was still intact. She had cashed her check with no problem, and like always, taken 15% of that in cash back to put into Michelle's college fund. She had deposited it humming to herself; that was when she had felt her stomach plummet in a way that had nothing to do with being pregnant. The account receipt said there was only $15.61 left. She knew that amount. She and Michelle kept a coffee can with a hole slit into the top of it as a piggy bank for loose change. They both hated change rattling around in their purses, and so had devised the "coffee bank" as her "college fund." To both their surprise, they together yielded around $20 a month in loose change for her college fund. It wasn't a lot, but it was more than they had expected. Cam had invested in a coin sorting machine, and she and Michelle took turns depositing the rolls of quarters, faces burning a little, into the bank tubes where very bored looking young people printed their receipts at the drive through window. The $15.61 had been October's income that Michelle had left riding around in her car for several weeks before Cam, exasperated, had taken it to the bank herself.

At the kiosk Cam pressed the buttons furiously, angrily, but more than that, with growing fear and dread. Where had it gone? Not a second after that thought had completed did Felicia's call spring to mind. She had taken the $50 all right; and the entire savings of Andrew, Cam and Michelle for Michelle's four years of undergraduate school. They had amassed just over $100,000. It seemed like a lot, but without financial aid, that amount would barely cover two years at virtually any private university in the country. $100,000 pared down to a meager $15.61. Impossible.

Cam had of course, immediately called Felicia. Felicia had changed her number. Cam had called their father but had declined to tell him the problem; he would take Cam's side, certainly, but would be distressed enough to have a heart attack with the levels of inter familial rage broiling around him.

She hadn't told Michelle yet.

Cam had been thinking long and hard; it seemed to help to simply give into her insane hormones and weep helplessly at an impossible situation. She had been so hopeful; Michelle's life was ruined in the stroke of one foolish girl. Cam didn't even know why Felicia had taken it, but she knew how. Their bank statement had been sitting open on the table. The bank, which handled both Cam's savings and checking account had immediately frozen her other assets, assuming (correctly in Cam's opinion) that it was a robbery. The problem was that if Cam turned Felicia into the police, a) Felicia would never forgive her and b) it would literally _kill_ their father. Then Felicia would never forgive her for _that_. Felicia's mind, unfortunately, was like a child's: very one sided. Her side.

The other option was to find Felicia herself. Yet despite Cam's resilience and resourcefulness, she had realized upon her resolution she didn't know the name of a single one of Felicia's friends, much less their phone numbers or addresses. Felicia, always moving and a terrible correspondent in the mail, never kept up with her own address nor bothered to pass it along to Cam. Her jobs were fleeting, temporary. Felicia worked both in fashion and for temp agencies; it wasn't hard for her to pick up her whole life and fall off the radar.

Cam had done the only thing she could think of; it was going to piss Booth to the moon.

She had called Jared.

Jared worked for a security firm now whose specialty was in finding and tracking people. If anyone could find her…

Cam dissolved into tears again. Michelle, proud of herself for breaking a twenty, had brought home several $1 bills and confided that she had decided that 'change' also meant singles. She had triumphantly put in $4.28 into the coffee can; Cam had almost broken down there and then to confess the truth. But, predictably wishing to screen Michelle from harm, Cam had decided to cope in her own way: alone. She would fix the problem and only after tell Michelle – if then. It wasn't as if Michelle could help in any way. She was 17. A child. Regardless, knowing or not knowing about Felicia's indiscretion would only add stress to her already stressful life. And it would bring Cam no added benefit.

And the more she had thought about that, the more she had realized there was no point in telling anyone. She would only add needless worry and pain to their lives; she was about to do that with a baby. They didn't want to see how desperate her life had become. She would confide in Jared and only if he failed, would she solicit Booth's help.

Cam hugged herself a little tighter in the dark, glad for the soundproof doors of the supply closet that had led her to her little (becoming frequent) refuge. She thought of Tony. He would have just shaken Felicia until, as he would laugh, the money fell out of her hair. (Felicia had spent most of her childhood sporting a girl-fro.) Heart breaking, she pushed him out of her mind. But damn him, he had opened up that jam jar.

Cam had a private theory that emotions were messy like jam. As such, they could be wrestled (metaphorically) and squashed/folded/compacted tightly into glass jam jars. Then the lids could be welded on, and all of a sudden, a thick plane of disinterest and rationality descended between her and the incident. She could stare at the short version through the walls of the bubbled glass; it seemed far away, remote and not painful at all. She had done it with her mother's death. The events surrounding her death were all crammed tightly into a little jar on a dusty shelf of other jars, dating chronologically to the first major (bad) event in her life – namely, Tony.

Her method of coping was to go through emotional tumult alone, force it down, repress it and then tightly screw a lid on it so she would never have to feel that way again. It was very effective; healthy? She didn't dwell on that. It was better to solve it her way, than to have to go back through her whole life and open up all those jars just to resolve the conflict the way some self help book or shrink thought she should. After a while, the pain dissipated. Cam had lost her partner and best friend to a stray gunshot as a detective; the rage, anger and loss had faded in the little jar until she realized one day she could hardly remember the incident at all, and the jam jar wasn't even there. It had disintegrated, leaving peace, and a completely healed scar. It was a matter of time, she consoled herself, before Tony too, would heal over completely. Cam simply needed time now, while she was wrestling to forgive or understand her conflicting emotions about her friends/family, and everyone leaving. Yet she knew eventually it would get resolved.

She tucked her head a little deeper into the folds of her shirt, sniffling as she regained composure, trying to think up another excuse of what to take from the closet. She had accumulated quite a collection on her desk; she needed to start remembering to return things to the closet before she had moved all the supplies to her office.

_Five more minutes_, she promised herself, tipping her head back to thunk against the cool wall. _Five more minutes._

* * *

Booth was nursing a crappy cup of coffee and narrowly watching Bones through the slits of her office blinds, feeling vaguely creepy. She leaned toward the light and Booth hurried to wet his dried mouth as the light silhouetted her figure.

_That's over_, he reminded himself viciously. He was with Hannah now. He looked up in surprise at the echoes of footsteps across the echoing lab floor. He jerked his head in Sweets' direction, realizing his sonorous preaching had finally died down.

"Huh?"

Sweets looked defeated. He crossed his arms and shook his head dramatically.

"You didn't hear a word I said, did you?"

"No, sorry, what?" Booth was still mumbling, frowning over the rim of his cup as he realized the guard wasn't just making his rounds but was coming towards them.

"Is it because you're too busy watching Dr. Brennan?" Sweets asked sarcastically.

"Yeah," said Booth nodding. Sweets' mouth fell open until he saw Booth hadn't heard a word he had said and was just agreeing.

"I've decided to take up football," Sweets continued blithely. "And shave my head."

"Good idea," murmured Booth.

"Agent Booth," despaired Sweets. Booth's gaze sharpened as if he first saw Sweets.

"Yeah. What?"

"I was saying-" Booth waved a hand.

"I know what you were saying. And don't shave your head, you're too pale." He clapped Sweets on the shoulder as he strode off, leaving Sweets' jaw gaping. He gathered himself enough to scurry after him.

"Agent Booth," the guard approached them both seriously. He looked uncomfortable, in Sweets' opinion. Booth evidently thought so as well for he frowned, crossing his big arms.

"What's wrong?" he barked.

"It's Dr. Saroyan sir," said the guard hesitantly. "She's on our lab newsfeed from the cameras she insisted we install."

"Is she doing something wrong?" asked Booth patiently. Sweets remembered with some amusement when those very same cameras had caught Angela and Hodgins in a supply closet.

"It's easier if I just show you sir."

"Okay," said Booth dubiously. The two men followed the broad shouldered guard back to a back room Sweets had never seen before. There were several screens lit up with different parts of the lab; Sweets wasn't blind. He, just as Booth, found his gaze arrested by Brennan stretching languorously in front of her laptop. Booth scowled at the guard.

"Okay," he sighed. "What's wrong?"

"It's..." the man looked uncomfortable tattling on his boss. He simply pointed.

"Oh God," said Sweets. Booth's head swiveled and followed his line of sight. On one of the grainy screens showed the supply closets. In one corner huddled Cam, obviously sobbing her heart out.

"Again?" asked a new voice. The three spun. Wendell, defensive and yet awkward, stood, shoulders hunched, staring over their shoulders.

"I heard you say it was about Cam," he muttered defensively. "She hasn't been herself lately; so I followed you to see what was up."

"She's been off?" Sweets addressed the young man, ignoring Booth's glare.

"What do you mean _again_?" Booth grated out. The guilt ate its way over his face.

"I opened the door to the closet earlier, looking for the paint Dr. Brennan needed," Wendell had slipped into his mumbling voice and shrugged self defensively, rolling his shoulders. "She was already in there – looked surprised. I didn't know anybody was occupying it see? So I just apologized and stumbled back out. She came out about 10 minutes later, all made back up and didn't say a word, So I did likewise. She wanted to save face. I understand that." Without a word, Booth spun on his heel. No one had to ask where he was going.

"I'ma just gonna stay here," muttered the guard. Sweets nodded.

"You do that Archie."

* * *

Booth yanked open the door to the closet right as Cam was wiping her face with both heels of her hands, already standing, slumped against a wire rack.

"Camille." He didn't say anything more; he didn't have to. She looked up half deprecatingly.

"Seeley." She peeked around his hulking frame, his face as worried as if he had seen Parker get hit by a car. He was half frantic with guilt and concern, and she noticed he had inadvertently sloshed coffee all down the sleeve of one arm. His concern was actually quite touching.

"Sweets," she said with some composure. The kid at least had the grace to blush a little, embarrassed. There was a pregnant pause.

"What's wrong?" Booth and Sweets blurted at same time. In answer, Cam sighed, and steepled her fingers and walked out of the closet.

"It's two major things," she confessed, steeling herself for their reactions. "One –" she started, chewing her lower lip.

"Felicia," finished Booth. She didn't have the energy to wonder at his mind reading skills.

"Yes," she sighed.

"Anything serious?" asked Sweets. Cam hesitated.

"Yes," she nodded again.

"You going to tell us?" asked Booth sarcastically. Cam shook her head resolutely.

"I need to figure it out first. Let me just have a little time." Booth's face softened.

"I respect that," he returned.

"We can help though," added Sweets.

"I'm okay." Cam clamped her lips shut after the automatic lie.

Wendell edged his way into their little tension triangle.

"What're we talking about?"

"You said there was another thing," Sweets pointed out. Cam hissed a breath.

"I think I should just announce it to everyone at once." She traded glances with Wendell who was hovering and confused. Booth's face hardened with concern and softened with confusion.

"Whoa. The whole lab huh?" He sniffed. Cam began to walk away but looked over her shoulder.

"You going to stand there all day Seeley?"

"Camille," he returned warningly, as he took after her.

Booth's voice didn't clue her to what was about to be manhandling; she had taken three steps from the closet before a sharp yank on her arm spun her around and she stumbled back towards Booth who was gritting his teeth. She could feel him shaking through his tightly gripped fingers. He let go of her arm to dash his hands at Sweets and Wendell.

"Get out. We need a minute. Go gather the Squints upstairs. Get everybody who matters in the lab. Cam has an announcement." Cam felt her heart jump unpleasantly at the thought, but it started thundering when Booth turned around and she took a glance at his face. He was murderously angry and completely and hopelessly defeated. He shut the door and shoved her roughly into a corner, looming in front of her so the cameras couldn't catch the expression on either of their faces.

As he thrust himself into her personal space, Cam was nonplussed to realize that there was no spark, no flutter the way there usually was. Instead she just felt very, very tired under his scrutiny. He did his usual cop thing and put both his hands around her head; it almost made her smile. Almost.

"What's going on with you?" Cam felt her heart rending; it was dark and his face blocked the little light there was. She couldn't see his features but she could feel his eyes burning into her. She told the truth.

"So much," she whispered.

"You can talk to me," he rumbled and looked up at him, frowning, tears flooding her eyes, lips tight. She told the truth again, knowing it would hurt him.

"No I can't. You have Hannah."

"You're still my best friend." His voice was shaky. Cam allowed some of the bitterness to creep into her voice.

"Really? Because you won't even talk to Brennan."

"Brennan isn't part of this," he ground out. Cam focused on his face, standing up straighter.

"Jared's been worried about you," she accused.

"You talked to Jared?" He was surprised.

"He called me after your dinner – where Hannah and Padme met."

"Yeah? What'd he say?" Cam laughed mirthlessly. She hadn't gotten a word in edgewise about Felicia what with Jared's rant. She needed to call him back.

"He wanted to know what I'd done."

"_You_ didn't do anything!" His voice was bewildered and he stumbled back a little and she advanced until they were standing equally in the center of the room, arms crossed.

"He said you're all fucked up Seeley. Acting weird. Not right. Head on backwards. He talked to Brennan too. Said she and you aren't together anymore, and the tension is still there."

"Me and Bones are fine," he was growling now.

"Well she's missing her _best_ friend," Cam persisted firmly. "I know, I've seen it."

"So am I," said Booth in a low voice, shoulders slumping. He looked intently at her. "Both of them."

"Seeley –" she started. He cut her off with a sharp shake of his head and a gesture of his hand, which shook more than his voice.

"What's going on with me is that I feel like now that I'm with Hannah, I can't be with the lab!" He was waiting for her to refute it, she could tell.

"To an extent," she chewed her lip, "that's true." His voice was shocked but unsurprised.

"What?"

"It's like what you said to me a long time ago remember? Come on Booth. Everyone in the lab is with Brennan. Everyone. If you and her aren't kosher, then you can't jive in her turf."

"What about you?"

"I think you're an idiot." She said it flatly.

"You don't like Hannah?"

"I like her, I love her, I think she's great. But not for you." His face scowled, but she could tell it was fake.

"Don't meddle."

"You know who's right for you."

"STOP IT!" He slammed a hand by her ear against the wall. The little cylinders of aerosol clinked as they shook. The door creaked open and three petrified faces peeked in, having heard every word of the last portion of the conversation. One face turned in on itself.

Brennan fled.

Hodgins and Sweets remained looking mortified, nodding as Cam and Booth filed out.

"We're all upstairs," gestured Hodgins awkwardly. Cam took a deep breath, her anxiety over her announcement returning.

"Okay let's get this over with." She chewed a little on the inside of her lip as they filed together upstairs, where Brennan was sitting, face frozen and white, next to Angela. Cam knew she needed to talk to Michelle. She should be telling her first; she knew already she'd be pulling an all-nighter with her foster daughter, talking both about her pregnancy and Michelle's new prospects for college. Angela met her eye, incredulous. She had been quiet for two weeks, but Cam knew they could hardly expect to hide it much longer. As much weight as Cam had gained – an even ten pounds at this point, she was still slim enough to notice a glaringly obvious baby bump at eighteen weeks.

"What's the big news?" Asked Booth sourly.

"Sit there," she directed. She ushered Hodgins next to Angela and perched Sweets on an arm of a chair.

"What's with the lineup?" laughed Sweets, but his laughter died upon seeing Brennan's stricken face, and Angela's ashen one. Brennan, privately, simply wanted to slink into her office and drown herself in writing her new book; Cam's remarks were still ringing in her mind, as was Booth's vehement denial.

"What's this about?" asked Wendell suspiciously. Cam didn't answer but placed herself by the balcony in profile, and with shaking fingers began to slip the buttons on her perpetual coat through the holes.

"What is this - a strip tease?" joked Hodgins. Angela hit him absently, but her eyes were on Cam's asking if she was sure, she was ready. Cam nodded once and dropped the coat to the floor, revealing her skin tight tank top (she had taken to wearing the lightest clothes she could underneath her hot coats she wore out of preference to hide her condition).

"Oh. My. God," said Hodgins, summing up the general sentiment. Cam looked down and saw that protruding out of her black slacks was a definite bump. Almost five months pregnant and there was no way to hide it.

The silence rung and out of the corner of her eye, Cam saw a hand wave.

"I came in at a bad time," Cole guessed.


	14. Haven't Got A Row To Hoe

"Cole," Cam was pleased. "Hi…what…what are you doing here?"

"You're _pregnant!"_ Booth exploded. Cole's face broke into one of his infamous toothy grins. Cam had to blushingly grin in response as Booth wound up for a huge tantrum.

"You never called me," pouted Cole.

"_Me_ call _you?"_ Cam raised her eyebrows. "Dr. Hart, I thought you believed in chivalry."

"Hmm," he tapped his face thoughtfully. "_I'm _the one with a family to care for. That kind of makes you obligated to call me."

"That logic is-" But Cam never got to finish what that logic was precisely.

"CAMILLE!" bellowed a new voice. Cam spun, sure it was Booth distorting his words, but though Booth looked red in the face as if he were ready to explode he too, looked around surprised at the reverberating echoes from the lab's extensive acoustic architecture. "WHERE IS SHE! Camille! Cam! Where is she? I'm going to kill her for you!" she heard feet running up the metal staircase.

"Wait!" called a second voice pitifully. Another pair of feet joined the first on the stairs. Jared vaulted into view.

"I can't _believe_ this!" he fumed, still yelling. Booth shifted in the peripheral of Cam's vision. Jared strode forward to shake Cam. "I _hate _her! I hate her for what she did to you! How could she!" Cam jostled helplessly like a little doll in his ferocious grip but he stopped suddenly, seeing the baby bump. His face twisted before he punched the air.

"Felicia…I swear I will find her Cam. I promise you that. I can't believe-"

"_You _can't believe!" screamed the second voice. Michelle stood, eyes puffy, snot dribbling from her nose, eyes welled shut from heavy crying.

"Oh shit." Cam didn't realize she had said the words aloud as Michelle, unseeing, continued to scream, advancing on Cam.

"Cam you should have told me! How could you! I'm never going to be able to do anything. I'm going to community college – no wait, I can't even do that!" she spat. "Because I can't afford a single class! _You've_ ruined my life just as much as _she_ did! You should have told me! I thought you trusted me." Michelle gestured between them. "I thought we were a family!"

"Michelle-" Cam started forward and Michelle's brown eyes fell on her stomach. Her face twisted cruelly.

"What is this?" she gestured. "Is this where you go when you don't come home at night? Is this where you took my car! Do you just go out and _whore_," Michelle spat viciously. "Big surprise there!"

"Hey-" started Booth but Cam shook her head, feeling him moving up from behind.

"Michelle I-"

"Just _shut up!_ How can I trust you with anything? You don't trust _me_ with anything! You say to act like an adult, but you treat me like I'm five years old. Look at you – you've completely _ruined _my life. I can't go to college now. What am I supposed to do? Work at Petsmart for the rest of my life?"

"Michelle-"

"Save it. It's not like you're my mom."

"M-"

"Or that you love me," laughed Michelle cruelly, turning on a heel. "I'm leaving. I'm moving in with Bekah. You can do whatever you want with my room for you and your stupid boyfriend." Michelle jiggled her hand in Cole's direction. "You guys deserve each other. Have your fucking baby – see if I care. It's not like you're replacing me or anything since apparently I wasn't important enough to be even a _tiny_ part of your life! But it's fine. I shouldn't have expected anything from you a second time around anyway. You're always leaving." Laughing with a hysterical and hateful edge, Michelle, tears still streaming down her face ran back down the stairs.

"I hate you!" she screeched as she sprinted from the lab. Cam realized her hands ached from clenching them together so hard. She had almost forgotten her entourage of onlookers before Jared, who had been pacing agitatedly, as if waiting for Michelle to leave, spun around.

"That was fun," snapped Jared. "But what I need to know right now before you go catatonic or whatever-"

"Jared-" Cam ground out, on edge, embarrassed and honestly hurt by some of the things Michelle had flung her way. Her fists clenched by her side.

"I can't believe Felicia. She drained Michelle's college fund?" Cam gave a quick, tight head shake as the rest of the lab gasped as if watching a television drama. Jared socked the air again. Cam's gaze sharpened as she forcibly restrained her entire mess with Michelle into a tiny little jar and shoved it as best she could to the back of her mind.

"Jared," her voice was tired. She tried to put iron into it. "What would Padme say if she saw you drinking?"

"I don't care," snapped Jared. "It's over."

"What did you do?"

"What did _I_ do? Oh that's rich. She just came at me, out of _nowhere_, screaming that I was a lying, cheating sack of scum and kicked me out on my ass. All I've been doing is working for you."

"Don't make this melodramatic," scoffed Cam, cuffing him upside the head. His face looked shocked as if he were incredulous she would dare touch him. Anger twisted his pretty features into hatred before he shrugged defensively. "She saw Felicia's picture from the file I compiled at work last night. She accused me of sleeping with her."

"Did you?" Cam realized that her joking tone had fallen flat, and she was honestly curious.

"What!" Jared looked outraged. "NO! I mean, not recently but-"

"WHAT!" Booth finally found his very loud, very mean, FBI voice.

"It was a long time ago," yelled Jared right back. "You guys were still together, and me and Felicia were teenagers. We thought it'd be funny to hook up. We thought you were going to get married."

"Jesus Jared," groaned Cam. "We knew that would never happened."

"Well when I was a kid, it seemed different okay? I mean, I was only 19 for God's sake. Padme should get that."

"It's great that you're going to help Jared," Cam expelled a long breath. "But you are flat out retarded. Get your head on straight before I punch it on for you." He laughed until Cam hit him in the stomach hard enough to leave him panting.

"Stop fucking around," she growled. "That part of your life is _over_. Need to throw up some of the alcohol in your system? Be my guest. Trash can is to your right." Jared straightened, panting, looking a little ashamed. She raised her eyebrows. "No?"

"I'm good," he grunted.

"Then go get some coffee downstairs. There's a brown bag in the fridge; it has a peanut butter sandwich in it. Eat that." She declined to mention that was her lunch. Jared started for the stairs. "Oi, I'm not done with you Jarhead, get your ass back here." Jared, startled and subdued back to a tractable age, slunk back. "Are you listening?" he nodded dutifully. "After you're sober enough to call a cab, go buy the biggest damn diamond your paycheck can afford. And a fuckload of chocolate. I mean like a fucking truckload. So much she puts on 20 pounds and hates you."

"But then she'll be mad-"

"Better that than this," said Cam firmly. "Go. And if you ever find Felicia, take some money and buy a getaway to Fiji or something. I'm serious. Or India."

"Yeah," Jared was nodding. "That's a good idea. I will. And I'll find Felicia. I swear. I'm good at my job." Cam finally smiled.

"I know."

"Jared-" started Booth but he was interrupted.

"Dr. Saroyan!" Archie was calling up the stairs. "A woman wants to talk to you."

"Just let me get up there," said another new voice.

"Coffee," Cam directed at Jared who moved off. Booth moved forward to follow his brother. "Don't mess with him Seeley. He's hurting. Let him be. Sit." Booth, declining her instructions barked at him like he was a recalcitrant golden retriever, at least stood still, crossing his arms.

"I've never seen her," called Archie again dubiously, "but she has Agent Booth's son with her."

"Parker?" barked Booth.

"For God's sake," huffed Rebecca, towing Parker up the stairs, "security is getting ridiculous." She looked at the assembly. "Seeley." She politely, if scathingly addressed Booth. "Cam can I talk to you?" Cam felt her face go slack with surprise.

"Now?" Rebecca looked at the ceiling briefly as if seeking patience and guidance.

"Yes, now."

"Sure," stuttered Cam.

"Do you want me to take Parker?" asked Booth. Rebecca looked at him directly.

"No." Booth, crossing his arms walked three paces away, face murderous. Cam looked around at the couch and pointed at Brennan.

"Cleanup?" she asked. Brennan, understanding, nodded once before moving away with the group.

"Booth-" she began.

"Bones. Just back off. I can't even talk to my son right now – Jared is – and Cam is –"

"It's hard," she agreed. "But come on. I'll show you something you'll like in Bone Storage." Booth felt his mind echo his sly little smile.

"Do you have to take your clothes off to show me?"

"Of course not," said Brennan perplexed, but caught on with his smirk. She pretended to scowl. "I _was_ going to show you some remains that had been gnawed on by a dinosaur but…"

"No way," Booth said, distracted but delighted. Her smile curled around her perfect lips. Booth caught on. "No way," he repeated again, "because dinosaurs and humans never lived together!" He was triumphant.

"So you can be taught," murmured Brennan, tilting her head as she walked off.

"What does that mean!" protested Booth trotting dutifully after her.

"Sweets will you go look after Jared?" Cam called him up. "Clean him up?" Sweets nodded and stood.

"Of course. Yeah, lemme just-" he awkwardly spun but finding nothing, darted towards the stairs.

"Two cleanups," murmured Cam to herself as she surveyed the remaining people in the room.

"Angela could you-"

"What do you need?" Angela interrupted quickly. Cam pointed at Brennan.

"She's watching him, but will you watch her? I know this has to be killing her." Angela's face softened.

"I know," she said quietly, and she gracefully exited in the direction Booth and Brennan had disappeared to, to carefully watch from a discreet distance.

"Hodgins," sighed Cam, "could you take Parker…"

"Yeah, sure," said Hodgins quickly, checking Rebecca's face to see how acceptable his presence was. The blonde woman looked like she was about to hit something with a bat. Cam realized Rebecca had already deduced her condition quickly but had refrained from commenting. Cam snatched up her jacket nonetheless and shrugged into it, grabbing Hodgins' arm.

"You had better have a Shetland Pony up your sleeve."

"Operation Shetland Pony. I got it. Big bangs, guns and whistles, the whole shebang."

"He's just a kid," despaired Cam. "Just give him something to do where he doesn't have to watch grownups fight, it's really hard on kids." Hodgins' blue eyes flicked over her face compassionately. He didn't ask, but they both knew she was speaking out of personal experience. Tony's disease had rent her family with the arguments that bubbled out of the stress between Cam's parents. Sometimes they were so bad, Felicia would hide in the closet, hands over her ears. Cam would just leave, braving the dangerous streets in favor of some quiet between her own ears.

"Come on little man," nodded Hodgins, "how do you feel about robots?" Parker's face lightened considerably.

"Cool. My dad told me that there was this guy here once who was a robot." Hodgins' face flickered a little bit at the mention of Zack.

"It's true," he verified with good cheer. "I had to charge him myself. His outlet cord came out of his _nose_!"

"Gross!" laughed Parker, and ran down the stairs ahead of Hodgins.

Cam had one blissful second where she got to close her eyes, tightly gripping the rail of the balcony. Then she realized that was a horrible idea; Michelle's argument came to haunt her, crowding against Felicia's indiscretion and Jared's life going to pieces. And Booth's life. And Brennan's. _This is my fault_, she realized with a sickening feeling. Even if she wasn't the problem between Brennan and Booth, she certainly wasn't helping their tension. And Jared. And Felicia. And Michelle.

"You should sit down," said a voice at her elbow and Cam visibly jumped. She had forgotten about Cole.

"I'm fine," she snapped. She moved quickly away from him; she didn't want to contaminate his world as well.

"No seriously – you should sit down."

"Rebecca," breathed Cam with a tight smile. "Let's go down to my office, please." She waved a hand before herself and ignored Cole's smug grin as he warned her in a monotone, not seeming to care if she listened or not.

"No. Really. Stop." Cam ignored his sarcasm. She walked forward and realized that she couldn't see; the world was black.

"Cam!" yelled Wendell. She had gone down in an undignified heap like a puppet with all its strings cut. Cole sauntered over, smirking. His expensive leather shoes stopped in front of her half slitted lids.

"Jeez woman, you're my second faint of the day," he grumbled as he hauled her up with one arm around her middle as if she were a football. "At least _you_ don't carry 265 pounds of morbid obesity."

"Put me down you bastard," she panted. He grinned and with a flamboyant gesture, set her on her feet. Cam looked stubbornly at the couch and tried to walk firmly toward it. She realized she was slightly swimming, moving thickly, clumsily as if underwater; she was even paddling her hands futilely against the air as an effort to propel herself forward. She looked down and realized with a screech she wasn't even touching the ground. She looked over her shoulder. Cole was lifting her by a little bunch around the belt loop of her pants at her lower back, easily hoisting her entire body weight an inch over the ground, not 'carrying' her.

"These pants are _expensive_," she warned him severely.

"You see," he complained as he tossed her unceremoniously on the couch. He wasn't gentle with her like most men; he treated her as a cross between another man and a sack of meat. Cam wasn't sure if she found the treatment refreshing or irksome. "This is why I'm a surgeon. Patients are just too difficult to talk to when they're awake. Give 'em to me all nice and asleep, drool hanging out their mouths…so much easier."

"Your bedside manner needs work," she informed him severely. A glass of water trembled in her vision.

"Are you okay Cam?" Wendell looked half terrified, half understanding as she hungrily gulped down the water.

"Really, Cam," added Rebecca. "I know how easy it is to over exert yourself. Some women in pregnancy lose consciousness for a few seconds if they get too hot headed."

"Outstanding," grumbled Cam.

"We can just talk here," offered Rebecca.

"That could work," sighed Cam. "Wendell?" The boy practically laid himself at her feet he was so concerned. She smiled. "I'm fine. But I could really use some information on financial aid…scholarships…" she winced but Wendell was patting her hand.

"I'm on it," he promised and left. Cam looked pointedly at Cole. He threw up two hands in defense.

"I came to see if you wanted to grab lunch."

"That sounds amazing," she sighed. His face brightened. Hers didn't. "But it looks like I have several aisles of cleanup."

"You pitched a no hitter. Batter one," agreed Cole, pointing at Jared below, who was looking vainly for a way to escape Sweets. "Batter two – " he jerked his chin over where Brennan and Booth were standing cloistered together, talking about everything but what they needed to address; their tension was painful and palpable even at this distance. "Batter three and shut out," he swept Rebecca a friendly little wave. She didn't smile.

"Could you please just-" Cam flapped a hand at him. Her heart ached for Michelle. She had no idea how she would be able to talk to her; or approach Bekah's mother now that Michelle had probably spread the word that she was moving in with her boyfriend and having his baby out of wedlock. That was a suburban nightmare.

"All right, all right. I'll wait downstairs where the coffee is. Chat up some of your friends." Cam could feel a tension headache driving an ice pick behind her right eye into her parietal lobe.

"Super," she enthused with all the pep of a gothic punk at cheerleading tryouts. She felt the couch next to her bend with Rebecca's added weight.

"What's going on?" she asked pleasantly.

"This is about Seeley," Rebecca confessed. Cam huffed a huge breath between tightly interlocked fingers screening her mouth.

"But why me?" She was blunt but not unkind. Rebecca looked at her long and hard.

"Well you've known the boys a long time – you're like a sister to them. I mean, you go so far back that I used to be jealous you were always hanging around. You knew me when Seeley and I were together. When I got pregnant with Parker, when-"

"Sure, sure," Cam assured her, not up for a 'remember when' revival. Rebecca twiddled a ring on her finger- one of many- while she hesitated. She looked up, as if Cam were a priest, and she were at confession.

"Something is _wrong_ with Seeley. I can't put my finger on it, but he's just not the same, Parker is upset, and…well frankly I don't know if I want my son around him. He's moody. Parker used to worship his dad, and now he tiptoes around him. I don't know why."

"Is this about Hannah?"

"No! No. God knows I've had my share of boyfriends and Seeley's been very sweet, never mentioning anything too disastrous."

A clink of a spoon had both women looking up as Cole Hart sipped some coffee. At Cam's glare he started down the stairs.

"I'm going, I'm going!"

"Is he your-" Rebecca looked pointedly down between them.

"No, I don't know who is," confessed Cam.

"Don't let people look down on you. Having a kid is the best thing to ever happen to me." Cam slowly drew tiny patterns on her slacks with the tip of a finger.

"What's _really_ wrong with Booth?"

"It's nothing I can name. He's just been irritable, he snaps at Parker, doesn't play with him. Parker comes home miserable afraid he's done something wrong. He misses Temperance, wants to play with 'Bones' like he used to but he doesn't even know what to say to his dad, or how to bring it up. He said the one time he did, Seeley didn't speak for an hour."

"Oh God," groaned Cam.

"Could you just talk to him- tell him that his life has ramifications on the people around him who love him? He needs to understand it's a ripple effect."

Cam swallowed, stricken.

"Sure," she murmured, but her throat was closed too tightly for other words.

Rebecca nodded and rather than clutter the air with more awkward innuendos, gracefully took her purse and went to find her son.

Cam groaned softly, and let her knees swing open indecently as she slumped her head in between them, the blood rushing to her face helped to heat it in order to keep the memories of everything that had just occurred from resurfacing and cracking her tenuous control while she was still in the lab. She felt the couch sink next to her; his wind-off-the-mountain scent clued her in before she had to look to see who it was.

"You eavesdropped," she grumbled. He chose to ignore that obvious fact.

"You run a lot of people's lives around here and people don't even notice." Cam swallowed hard; she didn't feel up for repartee. She looked at him and his smile dropped off his face like a rock into a pond. She knew her eyes were swimming but she adamantly refused to let a single one fall in front of him. Not again. Not ever.

"Please, before you say anything…could you just _not_ say anything?" He acquiesced by putting an arm around her shoulders and the other under her legs until his hug encompassed her entire body.

"Don't do that," she whispered.

"Do what?" He was surprised.

"Don't make this harder for me." He seemed incredulous.

"Hugging is hard for you?" She was ashamed.

"Yes." Their faces were close enough to feel the other's hot breath in their mouths.

"Am I hurting you?" he frowned. Cam swallowed but unwillingly answered.

"No."

"Then what's the problem? I can hug you if I want to. It's a free country." She laughed brokenly.

"You're hurting me then."

"Not physically."

"I can't let you hug me…"

"…because then you'd lose control," finished Cole.

She didn't say anything. Cole squeezed her out of sheer antipathy for her pitiful pushes against his arms. Cam was feeling herself perilously close to tears at the things Michelle had implied if not outright screamed. His voice rumbled into her carotid artery; she almost broke.

"Do you want to come over tonight and play with two beautiful baby girls?" Cam nodded, voice too clogged to speak. Several tears escaped as she drew a shuddery breath. Resolution not to cry: demolished.

"I have no where else to go," she said, finally realizing it aloud, her voice shaking. She hitched a sob.

"That's not true." Cam jerked up, mortified to be caught. That voice she knew better than Felicia's; Booth was walking up to the couch, Brennan in tow. Cam scrambled to seat herself at the far end, wiping tears away from her eyes careful not to smudge her already disastrous makeup. Angela filed in. Then Sweets. Jared. They were all compassionate.

"Michelle didn't mean it," said Jared. Cam personally disagreed but said nothing. "Honest I didn't realize she didn't know, or I wouldn't have said anything, much less made such a scene." Cam pressed her lips together and shook her head.

"It's my fault. I should have told her."

"Why didn't you?" asked Sweets. He looked both genuinely concerned, and genuinely confused.

"I figured I could handle it on my own – discretely- and not complicate her life. That way I would save her a lot of grief."

"But how much have you caused now?" asked Brennan, her voice straightforward.

"Brennan!" squawked Angela, shocked.

"It's okay," nodded Cam. "It's a fair question. But let's just get back to work." They put up an immediate fit of protest before Cam looked pitifully at Booth scratching her chin with three fingers. Booth's face stiffened; she had made the girl scout's honor pledge. It was their code for _help_ usually enacted in awkward social situations. He looked mulish, rebellious, but as always, came through for her. He barked out orders, booked Jared a cab and herded the Squints out of her sight within minutes.

The silence between Cam and Cole was palpable and on Cam's side, mortified.

"Call me tonight," urged Cole, pressing her fingers tightly, squeezing them until the bones grated together, seeming either unconscious of his strength or hoping sheer pain, in a masculine gesture, would shake her out of her stunned façade. Cam nodded, knowing she wouldn't. His face was lined, suddenly old. "Forget it," he scoffed. "I'll come get you after work. You don't get a choice." Cam swallowed as he walked down the stairs. She sat on the hideous couch for thirty seconds she carefully counted, fighting for her control of even her eyesight, before she followed him down, feeling the lab zoom in on her every move.

Cam didn't look at anyone. She walked into the closet and shut the door.


	15. Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk

**Sorry this took so long! Please review! I'm all glum because no one really loves me enough to review my chapters (guilt) Also, Cam is finally on fire on the show; she's so funny! I died when she told Nigel-Murray she'd murder him if he mentioned leaving the country to Michelle. And I feel bad for her. Hagfish?**

* * *

Cam felt guilty for sneaking out away from Cole's protectiveness, but knew in her heart, family came first. At the end of a _very_ long day and overseeing Jared's choice of beautiful diamond and ruby earrings, flowers, chocolate and champagne (_the whole shebang,_ she grinned wryly), she slunk pathetically to her car in the parking lot. She half expected to see him leaning nonchalantly against her car and was almost vaguely disappointed but also relieved. Angela had been detouring to her office all day with tissues; Cam, mortified, had swallowed and smiled and protested pitifully.

Hodgins, upon seeing them both together, began talking to the babies like they were both sentient and able to hear him, addressing them first as both boys, then as girls, then as each. Cam had actually laughed, so relieved that at least these two were fully on her side, and open minded enough not to censure her. She had swallowed back a whole slew of tears when Brennan had dropped by her office and smiled, congratulated her as if it were the most normal pregnancy in the world, withdrawn her complaints about Cam's 'illness' and lamented how silly she had been not to have deduced the obvious. When Cam had asked her out to lunch the next day, Brennan had accepted with a gracefulness tinged with relief. She too, looked as if she were bursting to confide in someone but was too proud to initiate the conversation.

Cam breathed deeply, tilting her head back against her car seat grateful that the day was finally over. She chuckled darkly; the hardest part was about to begin. She looked briefly in her rearview mirror and began backing out of her space. She almost rear ended someone's car. Distraught, she screeched to a halt and twisted in her seat to gawp at the car behind her. It was a dark SUV. She lay her hand on the horn, too aggravated to get out. The car was dark; it looked parked. Swearing, Cam thrashed out of her seatbelt and stalked over to the driver's window and was about to rap and almost politely ask the driver to move.

The car was empty.

Furious, Cam peered into the tinted windows, and almost gasped in a heart attack when a face met hers in the backseat window.

"Oh," Cole smiled amiably, rolling down the window with a hiss. "Finally. You're one of _those _drivers who sits in their car forever before backing out and thus enraging every Christmas shopper under the sun. I got tired of waiting so I climbed back here to talk to my girls. He moved his big head out of her line of sight, and Cam waved feebly at the two girls strapped into twin carseats. Andie, her longer hair down today, waved a fistful at her and screeched in surprise when she yanked.

"Cole, I really appreciate the offer, but…" said Cam, staring at her keys. She jerked her eyes up when she realized he had left on the other side of the car, opening that door. She was irked he wouldn't even listen to her apology. He tilted his head a sharp 45 degrees as he opened the back of the trunk and gestured for her to come over. Cam reluctantly dragged her feet forward; they ached in her heels.

"Doll, come see what I brought you."

"What?"

"Well, I realized sometime today that if it was my daughter screaming those things at me – not that you ever will-" he threatened the oblivious toddlers. Cam laughed. "I would want to go talk to her too. So I thought I could at least make your life easier." He handed her a heavy bag; she had to use two hands in her surprise to keep it from falling. It smelled heavenly, and she saw it was from _La Madeline_, her favorite French restaurant.

"In it you have penne pasta, chicken pot pies, assorted quiches, three different soups, a Cesar family salad, chicken marsala and just about the entire bakery. I didn't know what you guys liked so…"

"This is amazing," she said faintly. She set it carefully on the ground while he shuffled and grinned at his feet. He grunted in surprise as she threw herself at him, hugging him fiercely, surprising even herself.

"Sorry," she squeaked, restraining herself, slowly drawing her arms down, fully aware of the dead wife standing between them, flanked by Cam's own tragic love life.

He didn't stop her retreat, but his grin was a mile wide.

"If I had known I would have gotten _that_ kind of reception, I would have stopped at every restaurant in Georgetown." Cam laughed shakily, knowing that M street was wall to wall restaurants.

"Funny," she told him dourly. His grin didn't lessen a watt.

"Yes you are angel, yes you are."

"I'm not an angel," she told him tartly; it came out wearily. "So you should stop calling me that. And I'm not a doll."

"You're doll sized; and I think you're one of those avenging angels, whaddaya call 'em? Valkyries. You know, spitfire."

"They spit fire?" mocked Cam, secretly pleased. He chuckled. Cam, nudged the bag at her feet. "Cole," she said quietly, "this is really, _really…_a lot. I mean…thank you. It's quite…" her throat clogged up when she realized she was stumbling over the words the way she used to when her brother would surprise her with things like hot chocolate after she lost at a little league game and was swimming with failure.

"Want to have a quick cry in the back?" he jerked a thumb at the spacious trunk. "I swear, this thing is like a moving hotel."

"That is not usually what I get asked to do in the back of a car," she automatically said, and then clapped her lips together, mortified she had been as candid with him as she would have been with Booth. He laughed so loudly Cam almost wanted to crouch down as if he were a sonic jet. He did his disconcerting habit by tilting her chin up, as if chucking it lightly, but letting his touch linger just the slightest of bits, setting her face aflame, causing him to grin wolfishly.

"I have to go," she stuttered. He graciously lifted the bag of takeout to her car. Cam smiled into her rearview mirror as he finally let her back up.

* * *

"Mrs. Rovner," Cam greeted her civilly; her greeting was colder. "Is Michelle here?" The mother gave her a significant once over before she nodded unwillingly.

"She's upstairs, Dr. Saroyan."

"May I speak to her?"

"If she lets you." Cam edged her way into the doorway; she was slim, but the crack was infinitesimal.

Bekah's mother glared at her. Cam hesitantly pointed up the stairs and followed the sound of angry teenage voices. She knocked on the door that had a florid, artistic B painted into the woodwork. The voices stopped, and Bekah opened the door.

"Go away Mo-" she stuttered when she saw who it was and jerked the door wider for Michelle, who was red eyed and angry on the bed.

"I'm going to see what popcorn we have," mumbled Bekah, brushing past Cam and melting downstairs. Cam stepped forward but Michelle, in one fluid instant, had jumped from the bed and slammed the door in her face.

"Michelle, open the door." Derisive laughter met her mandate. "I'm _serious_ Michelle."

"Go away!" yelled a muffled voice.

Cam felt herself grow immediately ornery. "I'm serious Michelle! Open. This. Door."

"No!" Cam banged hard on it until she heard the angry murmurs of Mrs. Rovner downstairs.

"You can talk to me through there," yelled Michelle.

"You want to embarrass me? Fine, I don't care if everyone hears, just so long as you do," retorted Cam.

"I don't care, I don't care," chanted Michelle. Cam slammed her hand against the wood. She realized her eyes were swimming with tears; she didn't want every single person in her family to hate her.

"Well I do. Damn it Michelle! Do you want me to cry, would that make you feel better?"

"It'd make you human," sneered her foster daughter, and Cam could almost see her through the door.

"I'm SORRY!" yelled Cam, carried away.

"For what? Use your words Cam," mocked Michelle, sing songing like a three year old.

Ice flooded down Cam's spine hearing her mother's words being twisted darkly out of her daughter's mouth. Cam sobbed, missing her brother so hard, she felt sick. She wished she knew what to say. Confused, she simply opened her mouth, and let her heart say what it truly wanted.

"I'm sorry my sister is such a screw up. I'm sorry for Felicia, and I'm sorry I _always_ have to be sorry for her, instead of proud. I'm sorry she ruined your life and mine."

"No YOU ruined your life Cam," laughed Michelle bitterly.

"By getting pregnant?" asked Cam, hurt but resigned. Michelle's answer surprised her.

"No! By taking me in! I ruined your life." Cam's voice grew quiet.

"No, no you didn't." Michelle was crying; her sobs were shaking the door and Cam realized, heart aching, she was leaning against the woodwork, and making sure Cam couldn't force her way in. Cam let her hands rest where she guessed the sides of her daughter would be as if she could reach through the grain and hug her tightly. Michelle's voice was warped and garbled; Cam had to pay attention to catch the words.

"I've just messed everything up – now you and Felicia will never be happy together again because I came between you and you had to pick my side. I've broken your family because I was lonely…and selfish." Her voice faltered into silence. She was truly crying now.

"Michelle, open the door." Cam felt desperate.

There was a muffled "No."

"Michelle honestly, Felicia and I were _never_ close." Michelle was quiet now, and Cam could tell she had turned around and was resting her forehead on the door.

"You were all each other had."

"That's not true, I was much closer to my brother." Cam hadn't meant for that to slip out and winced painfully. Michelle's voice seemed to understand Cam was truly regretful of that admission.

"You have a brother?" Her voice was almost accusatory, as if she had been subjected to Felicia for no reason.

"Had a brother," corrected Cam. Michelle's "Oh" was silent.

"What happened?"

"He died when I was young."

"How young?" Cam felt the grilling a little. She stayed honest.

"12."

"That is young," agreed Michelle quietly, seeming to realize she and Cam had more in common than she first realized.

"Michelle, Felicia and I have been at odds our whole lives, mostly because Tony and I were a team."

"His name was Tony?" Cam nodded, even thought Michelle couldn't see her.

"Anthony." Michelle's jump in the conversation shocked her.

"If your baby is a boy will you name him Anthony?" Cam answered honestly again.

"I haven't thought about it."

There was silence, and then Michelle's timid voice.

"Are you keeping it?"

Cam was quiet. "Yes, I think I am."

"Oh."

"Well I wasn't going to but by the time I found out…"

"When did you find out?" interrupted Michelle.

"About two weeks ago."

"That short?" Disbelief colored her tone.

"I know I should have told you," Cam drooped in defeat, "but I was just trying to figure it out myself. I couldn't imagine being pregnant."

"Does _he_ know?" Cam knew Michelle was referencing Cole; they hadn't met officially, but Cam had been blunt in keeping Michelle in the loop that she was dating someone. She had felt obligated to tell her something.

"He's not the father."

"What?"

"Michelle I'm almost five months; I didn't know him then."

"What!"

"I know; the illness, the throwing up, the hot flashes – I wasn't sick."

"Oh my God."

"I know," admitted Cam humorlessly, "you think I would have guessed."

"Or me," laughed Michelle tearfully.

They were quiet, both breathing. Cam kept her fingers on the handle, the other hand flat on the door but it didn't open.

"Who is the father?" Cam had been dreading the question. She laughed morosely.

"Some guy. I don't know his name and I don't care."

"So he's kind of like a sperm donor." Cam laughed outright; Michelle had a dry sense of humor that never failed to surprise her.

"Perfect. Yes. Exactly. A sperm donor."

"Where are you going to put it?"

"Excuse me?"

"The baby, where are you going to put the crib?"

"I was going to redo the office."

"But the desk…where will you put the giant hulking desk?"

"I was thinking of moving it behind the kitchen table."

"That's silly," Michelle said tartly. "You should put it in my room."

"What?"

"I won't need it; I'm going to college."

"But during this summer…"

"When is the baby due?" Cam did some quick calculations.

"March."

"Well, we could do up the nursery now, and I could sleep in the office if we move in a singles."

"Or you could take my room; I can sleep in the nursery." Michelle laughed.

"We'll figure something out. Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

"No."

"When do you find out?"

"I have another appointment in two weeks."

Hushed: "Can I come?"

"Of course!" gasped Cam, bewildered at her luck. "I would love that; It's hard to go through this alone"

"If you don't have anyone better…" Michelle was self deprecating, "…and no Felicia…you can always have me."

"What do _you_ think I should name it?"

"Well we could brain storm over some French fries…" Michelle trailed off before a smile crept into her tone. "Cam you're really skinny."

"I'm putting on weight!" she protested.

Michelle echoed Angela. "Where?" Cam gave a watery laugh, touching her cheeks in surprise to find the tears had been silent and unbeknownst to her.

"We'll find Felicia," she promised through the door.

"I hope so."

"If not- well my credit is trashed, but we'll scrape the money somehow. Don't you dare change any of your plans," warned Cam.

"Ok," Michelle said, sobbing a little. Cam felt herself frown in anguish as she jiggled the handle again.

"What's wrong Michelle? What's wrong?"

The door handle finally turned under her fingers and Michelle rushed into her arms. She smiled tearfully and shocked Cam one last time as she numbly hugged her daughter back.

"I always hated being an only child."


	16. Skating On Thin Ice

**The more I watch Bones, the more I realize how tiny, tiny, tiny Tamara Taylor is. The weirdest thing? I read in Us that Michaela Conlin is the only size 0 on set. I refuse to believe it - I mean, seriously, even if Emily Deschanel is most probably is 2 or 4, there is no way that Tamara can be bigger...right? I mean..anyway, I'm rambling. Also - first call to get you all prepared for another story that's coming out soon. (As in...I'll write it soon...) so keep your ears out and nudge your friends that skipped this story!**

* * *

"I've never been here," commented Cam conversationally. Brennan looked stricken.

"Is the food too acidic for your pregnancy hormones? The ph of your stomach acid can be severely-"

"It looks great," Cam soothed immediately, also jumpy. Brennan shut her mouth so quickly, Cam could hear her teeth click together. They both picked at the Thai food menus gingerly, seated across from one another.

"I hope I'm not taking you away from other plans," began Cam awkwardly and Brennan shook her head again, the movement too fast to be polite. She was like a frenetic little toy, over wound and overwrought.

"No," she hastily assured her, her blue eyes unfathomable, but her face breaking Cam's heart, "No, Booth is having sex with Hannah right now."

"Really," Cam asked conversationally. "Did he text you just to tell you that?"

"Not exactly," Brennan said hesitantly, "but we had dinner plans…then Hannah came in unexpectedly and so of course Booth wanted to engage in coitus. It's a pleasant endorphin increase and the more frequent copulation, the more addictive-"

"Yes, I understand," Cam quickly interrupted, waving off her explanation. She understood indeed. Seeley was thinking with his cocky belt buckle instead of his little striped ties that covered his inordinately big heart. What an idiot. She understood now why Brennan had so gratefully and almost eagerly accepted her invitation to dinner after work. Cam took a deep breath as she finished ordering, grinding her teeth. No one was being exceedingly helpful in the lab. Angela and Hodgins were wrapped up in their baby – which was completely understandable – and Booth was wrapped up in Hannah, Sweets in Daisy, herself in Michelle…Cam chewed a little sliver of a hangnail. She hated being the boss sometimes.

It was up to her to resolve conflict. It was part of her job description. And there was so much tension oozing between Brennan and Booth that the lab wasn't running as a smooth oiled machine the way it used to; instead it was running like decrepit rusted gears forced together when they no longer fit. It scored Cam's heart to realize who no longer fit in their group: Booth. She clenched her jaw, unconsciously mimicking her fists under the table. He had brought Cam into the lab, and they had all primarily hated her. Now she was as much a part of the family as Sweets – maybe more if she counted how close she and Angela had become.

Yet joining the lab family had meant that Cam had grown away from her best friend, shouldered aside by the woman in front of her. Admittedly she had at first been bitter, but upon seeing the way Seeley looked at Brennan…but there was no comparison, and Cam had gracefully (if reluctantly) rolled out of his bed for the last time to join the cheerleading squad for the two (purposefully) oblivious players. Cam knew that if she had understood as much about Booth as Brennan did, their relationship may not have failed the first time around. Or the second. Or the fourth. Yet when the lab had "adjourned" for lack of a better word for among the most hellish months of Cam's life, Booth had gone and fell into bed, instead of falling into love as he so supposed. Instead of the partners finally becoming a couple as Cam and Angela had predicted, Booth had returned with Hannah in tow, and she had shattered everything.

Booth was right. He wasn't part of the lab anymore.

Brennan was floundering in the silence. Cam didn't have to have her brain to know that Brennan, who had originally resisted Booth's constant presence in her personal and work life, now desperately missed it. He had ingratiated himself into her life so fully that she had finally let down her guard. But just as Cam had warned him, he hadn't been sure and left her in pieces, probably never to open up to another person again. He had gone and yanked it all away, ripping most of her heart out with his absence, expecting with a man's typical egotism that their relationship would survive.

Cam missed the question directed at her with an ungraceful snort of surprise.

"Huh?"

"I said, has Michelle found out about you filling out other applications for her?"

"How do _you_ know about that?" Cam gasped, hating Hodgins. Brennan gave her a _look_ as if Cam doubted her mental capacity.

"You printed to the lab's general printer."

"I needed the color cartridges," winced Cam. They were silent again. Cam swallowed and faced her fears; she hated emotional confrontations. It was easy to fire people for incompetence, or to ream people when they messed up something important, but neither of those were the instance that faced her. Brennan was exceptional and had done nothing wrong. It was simply…familial concern that drove her. Cam bit her lip. "How are you?" she blundered. She cringed. That was awkward. Brennan looked at her blankly but Cam could tell she was acting purposefully obtuse.

"In what respect? As a scientist? I am more than competent in my work and am clearing several cases that have been cold for more than half a century which anthropologically speaking is a relatively short period of time. How am I as a –" Cam didn't let her finish.

"I meant…" Cam twirled her chopsticks in her Pad Thai. "I meant…in regard to Hannah and Booth."

"I'm happy for him," she said automatically with a mechanical edge that had Cam's mouth slipping down in unhappiness.

"Happy how?" asked Cam politely, still egging her gently – like a baby bird to the edge of a nest.

"Well," mulled Brennan slowly, her own food all but untouched. Cam had to force herself not to dictate for her colleague to eat. She was not her mother, but her maternal instincts were blaring as she _literally_ watched day by day as Brennan wasted away, dropping the scant few pounds she could afford with her disinterested appetite. "I'm happy that he is happy. I'm happy that he has found what he regards as love."

Cam sifted through the crop of questions that hung on her tongue for the easiest for Brennan to answer.

"What do you consider true love?"

"I don't believe in true love," she stated flatly. "And even if I was convinced of love…which Booth has done to a certain extent…"

"What do you mean?" Cam harrowed quickly.

"I see now," admitted Brennan grudgingly, her eyes glued fast to her own congealing tofu that to Cam looked utterly unappetizing, "that there is more to love than simply my original hypothesis of a chemical reaction." Her eyes fixed on Cam's eagerly, almost desperately, as if trying to convince Cam that love was real. Cam bit her lip, forcibly holding back more words. "There's also trust," she continued, her voice escalating the slightest of bits. "There's faith in another person when the circumstances aren't certain. There's…there's a connection that goes beyond the pleasantry of dopamine."

"That sounds about in line with my own theory," said Cam, as if unwilling to warm to Brennan's opinion. Brennan's voice heated with vehemence, as Cam had wanted, warming to her advocated topic as Cam gently left conversational breadcrumbs leading her to her problem. Delicate. That's what she had to be.

"But not _true_ love," emphasized Brennan. "Booth believes there is one all encompassing person that embodies everything good. I told him once that Plato had a theory of soulmates as people born with eight limbs and two heads with two hearts, split apart at birth." Cam felt her own stomach flip with the image; it was poetic to say the least.

"You don't believe in one soulmate," hazarded Cam, making her voice more skeptical than honest.

"No!" exclaimed Brennan, her fork clanging to the table next to her discarded chopsticks as if different eating implements could tantalize her, just as if different interests she took up in the Jeffersonian could coax meaning back into her life. "That's ludicrous! Imagine if you were born – " she wrinkled her nose. "Where were you born again?" Cam blinked luminous eyes as she jerked her head out of her folded hands, busily entranced in a glimpse into her colleague's soul to answer the banal question.

"The Bronx," she answered hastily, hoping Brennan wouldn't lose her fire at the untimely interruption.

"If you were born in the Bronx," continued Brennan, her voice more modulated but no less intense, as if it were vitally important for Cam to understand, "what if your soulmate was born in Kenya?" She frowned quizzically, as if seeing a flaw in her logic. She speared Cam's concentration with another fired question. "Have you ever been to Kenya?"

"Uh-" said Cam, bewildered, "no."

"_Exactly_," said Brennan fiercely. "So it wouldn't be your fault if your whole life you never went to Kenya. Or if your soulmate never emigrated. It's ridiculous to postulate only _one_ person matches one person." Cam decided to quietly play devil's advocate, happy to lead Brennan to her own conclusions.

"I assume that – as in Plato's theory of course-" Cam frowned as if thoughtfully, careful not to touch on the tinge of fatedness present in Brennan's voice, "the Greek gods would try to place them within the approximate vicinity of each other so you would find-"

"No!" argued Brennan. "The gods were _afraid_ of humanity's power upon finding their heart's other half so they scattered them far apart."

"Your heart's other half?" asked Cam delicately, pinpointing the emotional truth of Brennan's historical lore.

"So to speak," Brennan hastily retracted. Cam felt her line go a little slack and stepped up her skepticism.

"But you think there are _multiple_ halves to hearts?"

"Not literally," huffed Brennan impatiently, "but the idea that there is only _one_ soulmate is erroneous. Obviously there must be more than one person with which you can make this pairing."

"So Hannah isn't Booth's One True Soulmate?" Cam purposefully enunciated the capital letters as a sense of mocking, instead of the deeply serious crux of an issue that it was.

"No," said Brennan, suddenly full of revelation. "No, she may be _one_ of his soulmates but-"

"But you said soulmates are predicated on trust and knowing the other person, not just endorphins."

"Yes but-"

"And you also," said Cam gently, watching Brennan through thick lashes as Cam pretended to have trouble scooping up her noodles, "said that Booth was busy with Hannah right now, creating more endorphins."

"Yes but-"

"And when Hannah wanted a housewarming gift she went to _you_ because you know Booth and she doesn't."

"Yes…but…" Brennan's voice was faltering into silence. Cam joined her, scooping her noodles with sudden dexterity to avoid having to fill in the silence.

"So my apparent conclusion," continued Brennan unwillingly, "is that…_I_…am a better potential soulmate for Booth than Hannah."

Cam wanted to shout to the heavens. She restrained her sudden impulse for a higher calling to simply cracking open a fortune cookie (though she was still confused since they were _Chinese_ fortune cookies, and not Thai food.)

_You will help a friend_, said the fortune and Cam almost chuckled before she looked up and saw Brennan's stricken face as she suddenly gulped at her food, as if discovering she was famished with the revelation that perhaps she should be fighting a little harder for her partner.

"Slow down Brennan!" she exclaimed before she could help herself. "Or you'll choke and I'll have to save your life. Booth would _hate_ that," she added perversely, watching Brennan's face flush with both pleasure and a pink tinged embarrassment.

"He does have a Herculean complex," she nodded seriously, "when clearly my life experience has put me in more dangerous situations…" Cam coughed into her drink and the two were silent again. Cam looked up in surprise when Brennan's voice slid slyly across the table, her face coy.

"You're very good."

"Excuse me?" asked Cam blankly, not sure if she and Brennan were on the same page.

"I just realized you just constructed that whole argument." Her face was expectant…waiting, a smug smile flitting beneath the surface. Cam was floored. Evidently Seeley _was_ having some effect on her.

"I…" stuttered Cam and viscerally jumped when Brennan actually _touched _her hand in gratitude.

"Thank you," said Brennan sincerely. "I realize now that we often overlook you. That…that…I…" evidently forcing out personal blame was harder than magnanimous statements, "I overlook your contributions. Both in the lab…and in our friends. I know Angela adores you." Cam felt her throat close a little. She hadn't expected to go to dinner with Brennan and get anything for _her_ out of it. She smiled a little too brightly.

"No…no…it's okay. I just…Seeley and I have been friends for a long time. I like to think we were too similar…if you ever want to know what he's thinking…I feel like I probably have the best idea." Cam sighed; those had been the hardest words of the night to say, to offer Brennan direct help.

"Thank you," said Brennan sincerely, and finally released Cam's hand. Cam breathed out shakily, realizing her heart was thundering with the unexpected twist of depth in the conversation.

"Do you want to get a cupcake?" asked Brennan suddenly, looking up from her cold but devoured food. "I just realized that I'm _starving_."


	17. And Baby Makes Three

"Michelle," winced Cam, "you're grinding the bones in my hand together."

"Huh?" Michelle jerked her head suddenly, coming aware of her surroundings with a jolt. "Oh. Sorry." She released Cam's parched white hand quickly and Cam felt blood flood the crushed veins. She rubbed it absently, her gaze too, riveted on the same door Michelle had not stopped watching.

They were sitting together in a waiting room, the sonogram room to be precise. Michelle's golden gaze was fixated on the woodwork but Cam strove to train her ebony one on the magazine held listlessly on her little stomach bump.

"Penny for your thoughts," the sonogram technician smiled as Michelle jumped a mile and Cam felt smug, being able to glance up without startling so easy.

"I think it's a boy," Michelle confessed aloud breathlessly. She stopped, squeaked a little at Cam's glare pointedly directed at her manners, then rushed, "And I'm Michelle. I'm her…daughter." She faltered only a little, but Cam still swallowed heavily.

"Pleasure," nodded the technician, "I'm Dixie." She was a plump woman of indeterminable age somewhere between fifty and sixty. She had a close crop of whitish blonde hair that looked like the torched end of a q-tip and rimless glasses. Her scrubs were covered in Smurfs. "Okay," Dixie beamed, "let's get the party started." She helped Cam onto the table, which vexed her to no end – she was pregnant, not crippled. Cam didn't allow Michelle to see her shaking hands as she flipped up her shirt; she was still hoping the baby was healthy.

The technician laughed when Cam jumped at the gel. "It's cold, I'm sorry." Cam murmured something inane as her eyes glued themselves to the ultrasound. It looked like a lot of white noise to her and then…and then…the heart beat. Michelle started to her feet like a cat on a live wire.

"Oh my God! It's there!" She grinned foolishly at Cam who realized she was also beaming.

"You think I just put on all this weight for nothing?" she huffed, but her heart wasn't in it as Michelle resumed the grinding of her metacarpals.

"The baby is small," said the technician knowingly, "but strong. Would you like to know the sex?"

"Yes!" shrieked Michelle before Cam could say otherwise. Dixie looked at her for permission.

"Could I sit up first?" she asked plaintively.

"Let me snap a shot," laughed the nurse before she clicked a button as Cam held her breath – an irrational thing to do, as it didn't matter. "Picture perfect. I'll go print that and get the doctor to come in and write up your chart." Cam struggled into a sitting position as they both breathlessly, but unable to find voices, watched as the sonogram technician open the door. She looked back over her shoulder with a benign smile.

"And by the way…congratulations – it's a girl."

"A girl!" exclaimed Cam as the nurse smiled, nodded her head and shut the door.

"A girl!" exclaimed Michelle. "I could have _sworn_ it'd be a boy!"

"Michelle these things aren't set in stone you know," smiled Cam, a glow suffusing her features as she hugged her stomach. A girl. _Her _girl.

"A sister," beamed Michelle. She suddenly flung her face towards Cam's abdomen. "Hello! Hello!" She laughed as Cam did but suddenly stopped, putting her hands on Cam's arms as she bent in, as if consciously having a conversation. "What's that?" she mocked. "Oh, you've named yourself have you?" Cam frowned a little, wondering what Michelle was playing at. "Oh. I see. Yes, yes, I'll tell her." Michelle straightened up, patting Cam's stomach as if hanging up the phone.

"She says to tell you that her name is Toni."

"Tony?"

"Yep. Her name is Toni and you don't get to name her anything else. If you did, she'd be very angry." Michelle's eyes glittered a little.

"But what's her full name?" Michelle shrugged helplessly in answer. Cam frowned down at her stomach and jiggled her legs, making her stomach bounce. "Toni? Is that true?" The stomach bobbed as Michelle giggled.

"Antoinette is a pretty name. Better than Camille," she shrugged, "and like me, you don't have to go by that girly mouthful. Madison Antoinette. It's got a ring. And you can still go by Toni."

"Madison?" asked Michelle, "where did you get Madison?"

"From your father," said Cam quietly, meeting her gaze. "Because I loved him very much, and his middle name was-"

"Mason," finished Michelle in a whisper.

"We always thought…" Cam let her gaze drift away. "I always thought that when…when, not if….we had kids…he'd like it if he could have another little girl…" Cam swallowed, seeing Michelle's stricken face as if she had slapped her with more than the past. "Your mother named you, you know.

"I know," Michelle said hoarsely. "It was her middle name."

"And Andrew was fond of…of matching names. He always told me he'd soon have two little M&Ms." Michelle's eyes were swimming. Cam looked hesitant. "You don't mind? If I name her Madison, I mean."

"Mind?" echoed Michelle. "That's the nicest thing I think you've ever done for me."

"It's not for you," said Cam softly, rubbing her stomach. "It's for Andrew."

"For little Toni," smiled Michelle and did a quick little dance. "We'll have to paint the nursery!"

"The nursery?" asked Cam dryly. "Where do you propose we put that?"

"I'm giving up my room of course!"

"Michelle," Cam tried to protest.

"No, I'm serious," Michelle said stubbornly. "I'm going to college in Maine, and I don't need to have my room just sitting around doing nothing when there could be another little girl in it, playing with my dolls."

"I only have one request," sighed Cam, giving in far too easily.

"What?"

"No pink," Cam sulked and Michelle rippled with laughter.

"Deal."

"But where will you sleep?"

"On the couch."

"Or with me," Cam hastily offered. Michelle sulked.

"You're going to get huge. And you kick."

"I don't kick."

"You do, ask Uncle Booth."

"_Michelle_!" Cam was scandalized even as her face grew bright red.

"Plus, you snore."

"I DO NOT SNORE!" roared Cam and the doctor walked in with a lopsided smile. Chastised, they both piped down until they were walking back through the corridors towards the waiting room exit.

"Let's do a castle theme," Michelle insisted, as if the interruption had never occurred. "Baby blue walls, clouds, a sun on the ceiling and stars on the other half…" Michelle was artistic. Cam sighed and shook her head, letting her daughter ramble. "We can put a sunset on one wall," continued Michelle blithely, seeing a masterpiece where Cam saw a mess. She shrugged, eager to please and glad that Michelle was so happy. "And a castle, a dragon, a unicorn, some secret gardens…" Michelle was continuing. She spun toward Cam right before they went into the waiting room, dragging her to a halt in the hallway.

"I'm going to be the best sister this kid could ever possibly have," she vowed, "I want her to be so spoiled, she looks forward to my presents every year!"

"Michelle," and Cam was suddenly overcome with tears. "Oh…" she couldn't finish her garbled sentence and instead wrapped her daughter in a huge hug. "I couldn't do this without you," she said, and realized when Michelle's fingers curled into her, that was the correct thing to say.

For the first time in a long time, Cam didn't wonder if she was hugging someone the right way.

**

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Ugh this is so sappy I could vomit. I'm sorry, I like my healthy dose of angst with everything. It'll come but I can't very well drop it in there can I, after what I've hauled them through to this point. Review anyway; sorry about the filler.**


	18. All That Glitters Is Not Gold

Cam swung the door into the waiting room awkwardly since one of her hands was wrapped around Michelle's shoulders. It was empty save one person who was irritably flipping through a bridal magazine. He looked up as if the door hinges had been connected to a gunshot and shot to his feet.

"Cam!"

"Cole!" she teased right back, only slightly surprised to see him. "How did you…"

"I'm friends with all the on-call nurses," he grinned. "I told them if anyone matching your description came by through the front entrance for the private sector to page me." Cam felt a blush suffuse her features, wondering how he had described her.

"Good thing we went through the front," she teased and he laughed.

"Well, you're a terrible correspondent and I wanted to be the first to know. Is it a boy? I'm telling you," he puffed self-importantly. "I knew it was a boy from the beginning."

"It's a girl," Michelle chimed and Cam faux glared at her through the corner of her eye. Michelle ducked her head guiltily in response.

"A girl!" exclaimed Cole, jumping the few feet between them exuberantly and catching Cam up in his arms. She shrieked with laughter like a child as he spun her quickly about. "A girl!" he cried again as he shook her up and down forcibly as if she weighed no more than one of his daughters as he patted her back, mussing her hair. Cam couldn't control her ridiculous laughter both at his joy, and her own bubbling ecstasy.

"It's a girl," she confirmed when he had finally set her, wobbling, back onto her feet. Hearing it from her own lips, Cole twirled her around again until she protested, laughingly, "I get nauseous easily, remember? Try not to let me throw up on you again."

"You've never thrown up _on_ me," he condescendingly mused but he did straighten her jacket for her like a father straightens his toddler's clothing. Cole brushed her off as if it had been she who had become exuberantly out of control. Their laughter had caught onto Michelle and tickled the nurse behind the sliding glass who had gestured her coworkers to watch covertly.

"And who's the other angel?" asked Cole, his coyote grin slipping across his features so charmingly, Michelle found herself smiling back, not the least bit shy.

"This is my daughter Michelle." Cole thoughtfully nibbled on a cuticle as he nodded as if trying to recall something from long ago.

"Oh yes…I remember now. We briefly met at the huge meltdown of your life a couple days ago." Michelle's big smile faltered as her face burned. Cam felt her own face flush like a roman candle.

"I…I'm sorry about that," Michelle swallowed her pride with the lump in her throat and so squeaked hoarsely when Cole caught her up and twirled her around too.

"For what little spastic? You have your mother's temper through and through. Did you like the cake I got you?"

"That was you?" asked Michelle coyly, being set down as if that spin had been a load of laundry washing her face clean of worries. _That man really is a marvel, _Cam sighed. "The cake was excellent. Plus it was awesome that Cam didn't have to cook."

"And what you mean is that you didn't have to eat what she cooked," corrected Cole shrewdly as Michelle blushed, stammered and giggled. Cam rolled her eyes.

"I'm not a bad cook," she pretended to huff.

"She's really not," advocated Michelle.

"I just have a very specific set of things that I make," Cam tried to keep her face straight, but when Cole shook his head in regret and said:

"Baby, I am so sorry," and clapped Michelle on the shoulder, she had to crack a guilty grin. He looked at them both and mimed shooting guns with both hands. "Come on knockouts, let's celebrate this wonderful Little Miss Spunk as an addition to the family!"

"Where should we eat?" asked Michelle eagerly as Cole ushered them out the door to the silent groans of the nurses who had been watching their reunion with unabashed interest.

"Don't you worry about it little lady," Cole said, twisting his voice to a terrible impression of Clint Eastwood. "I know exactly the place."

They followed his black BMW through weaving traffic at first with the radio filling the glowing silence before Michelle looked at Cam appraisingly long enough to wrench Cam's gaze from the road.

"What?"

"I like him," Michelle said simply. "He's a little weird…"

"Tell me about it," muttered Cam.

"But he's a good guy. He's funny." Michelle fiddled with a radio station and added under her breath, "and pretty hot."

A long blast from the horn was what Cam got for jerking the car across the lane in surprise as Michelle gasped.

"Michelle!" Her face was on fire and instead of apologizing, Michelle laughed.

They turned into a parking lot to a tiny little building sitting alone away from a strip mall. _Emilio's_ proclaimed good Italian food, but Cam was a little reticent at the ramshackle exterior and hand painted signs. She was a traditional (and strict) believer in chain restaurants. So she sacrificed finding 'holes in the walls,' but at least the food was always consistent.

"You getting out, doll?" Cole knocked on her window gesturing as she and Michelle reluctantly exited.

"You ever been here?" Cole asked excitedly. Cam felt the opposite of excited, but tried to muster some enthusiasm.

"Nope," she shook her head. But nothing got past Cole Hart.

"Oh no, don't tell me you only eat Italian from _Olive Garden_!"

"And _Macaroni Grill_," snapped Cam defensively. "And it's good!"

"It's fine. If you want to pay for overpriced, over cooked frozen food," he scoffed. "Emilio is about to change your life. Forever."

"He's still alive?" asked Michelle, the three of them walking abreast, Cam in the middle.

"Course he's alive," said Cole chucking her arm across Cam's chest. She _definitely_ noticed the lingering retraction and extended contact as he pulled his fingers back across her breasts nonchalantly. She never blushed so much in her _life_ as she did in five minutes around this obscenely attractive man. Even Booth had been more…more…genteel. He at least had the decency to hold the door for them.

"OH! Issa my boy the fancy heart doctora! Or should I say, the fancy Doctora Hart?"

"Emilio!" laughed Cole, who was enveloped into a hug by a very old man who looked nothing more than like a bat eared goblin. He wiped watery brown eyes on the back of a hand.

"Issa been very long sir," he said sternly. "I no seen your new daughter in months! She must be so big!"

"She is," Cole assured him. He drew Cam forward, and Michelle, each by the elbow.

"Emilio, this is my friend Camille Saroyan and her daughter Michelle."

"Friends of friends!" cried the white haired man; he was going bald on top, but the rest looked as if he had been having lunch not yesterday with Edison and Tesla, and gone out to play croquet in an electric field.

He enthusiastically grabbed Michelle by both arms – she was closer than Cam, who stood at Cole's other shoulder – and kissed her full on the mouth. Michelle screeched a little in surprise, beet red, as he released her. Cole was shaking with laughter, looking five minutes from rolling on the ground like a dog and positively squirming with mirth. If he had been graced with a tail, it would have been wagging fiendishly.

"Bella! Oh they both muy bella!" cried Emilio, seizing Cam forcibly as well and descending for the European greeting. Cam, almost crying she was laughing so hard at Michelle's shocked face, managed to turn her cheek at the last minute.

"Oh ho!" cried the elderly Italian man. "I see how it is!" Michelle, scarlet, raised both hands to her flawless skin on her cheeks, mortified. Cole was literally bent in half, one hand resting on the table holding the mints and presented wines as he laughed. He had known what would happen. Or it had exceeded his expectations. Cam, as she clutched her purse, didn't feel bad at all for kicking him – hard- under one knee cap. His laughter was interspersed with a yelp.

"You are _insane_," she hissed, not wanting to hurt the exuberant old man's feelings. He looked on shrewdly.

"Oh, okay, she needs to be kissed is that it?" asked Cole to Emilio seriously, grasping Cam from behind. "Here I'll hold her still for you."

"What!" shrieked Cam, wrinkling her nose, red as a beet and too kind hearted to turn the poor old man down. But as he moved forward, Cam felt her head being forcibly turned and Cole laughingly covered her mouth with his own. Her aching arms – _held with one hand_- she mused wonderingly, suddenly felt like jelly.

The kiss was brief, over before it had begun in her opinion – hardly any tongue, but Cam was still left staggering as Emilio cheered, calling someone over in Italian.

"Oh, very good Doctora Hart. I see how it is. You don't want me on your woman!" Cam, dying of embarrassment, saw Michelle's blood red face looked a little less hurt and a lot more amused at Cam's own mortification and light headedness. There was one thing to say: the man knew what he was doing.

"This," he petted the face of a resigned young man in his early twenties, smushing his eyelid closed as the man's gnarled fingers caught at his skin. "This is my grandson Benito. He will show you to your table."

"Just Benny," he said. Cole clapped him on the back.

"You look well," he told the young man who smiled slyly under an arm.

"So do you sir, so do you." Cam and Michelle followed them, neither quite trusting themselves to look at the other out of fear of either breaking and running or dying of laughter.

The young man showed them to a big table in the middle of the restaurant. A few people were there – it was around 4:30, so the dinner crowd hadn't flooded in yet. Cam privately wondered if the tables were ever full. He held the chair out for Michelle, who, flustered, sunk into it without protest. Cole did the same for Cam, who took it more gracefully.

The carpet was a deep green left over from the seventies and very threadbare, its dark hue not quite concealing the stains. The wallpaper was peeling and the lighting was too dark for even mood lighting. Cam wasn't sure if she was squinting or just blind in the dim lights as she sat in stiff backed wooden chairs, grooves carved naturally into the backs and seats from hundreds of occupants. The tables were nicely covered with white tablecloths and little tea light candles. There was a prettily blooming red rose. Cam smelled it and started back a little in surprise. It wasn't plastic; it was real.

"That wasn't fair," griped Michelle, taking the seat next to Cam and away from Cole. "You _knew_ that would happen, didn't you Dr. Hart?"

"Cole, please," he waved her off, but Cam still gloated a little at her daughter's correct manners the way she always did when her daughter did something socially correct. She knew that was mostly Andrew's doing but she still liked to think Michelle was one of the better bred teenagers…to everyone but Cam.

"And then Cam totally got to cop out of it!" continued her daughter. Cam felt her face heat again and looked for a menu to hide her cheeks.

"Menus?" she asked politely to Benny who was busy pouring them water.

"No menus," waved Cole cavalierly. "Benny we'll have the house."

"Yessir."

"House specialty?" corrected Cam delicately, but Cole beamed.

"No. The house. Everything on the menu."

"What!" screeched Michelle, sounding so much like Cam that the two others laughed.

Benny had disappeared after bringing them all three Diet Cokes, which impressed Cam to no end at the service. She hadn't even ordered. She saw Cole grin smugly like a kid in a candy store. She rolled her eyes. She didn't know how, she didn't know when, but somehow he was orchestrating their entire experience. Oooh, she was mad. And confused. And burning in more than one way. That was their first kiss? Really? It was so short, and embarrassing, and stupid, and perfect. Cam picked up her drink and ignoring the straw, gulped half her water down in one go, letting the ice slosh against her face.

Cole chuckled darkly.

"I hate you," she informed him, reaching rudely across him to pick up _his_ water glass. She ludicrously let her hand retract ever so slowly, letting him know that she knew _exactly_ what he had done earlier. The straw went up his nose.

She started laughing so hard she dropped the entire glass into his lap.

Michelle giggled so hard she hiccupped.

Cole jumped to his feet, piqued but laughing as three waiters conjured themselves out of nowhere to clean up the spill. Cole glanced ruefully down at his black dress pants, drenched with a large puddle down the front.

"This isn't embarrassing," he grinned, a little hot about the collar, and pink about the ears.

"_Now_ we're even. Sit down_ doll_," she simpered sweetly, pulling the chair next to her out for him. Michelle high fived her across the table. Cole, scuffing his feet like a child and grinning resignedly as if acknowledging he merited the punishment, slunk back into his chair.

"I'm not a doll," he mimicked in a high pitched squeaky little voice.

"I do not sound like that," she griped.

"_I do not sound like that,_" he mimicked. Michelle gasped.

"How did you do that? You sound just like her!"

"He did not," frowned Cam. "Listen!"

"_Oh he did too_," parroted Cole and Michelle bounced in her seat like a little girl.

"That's _so _good! Can you do anyone?"

"Gal, I'm a one woman kinda guy," he said, feigning astonishment at her insinuation. "I don't _do_ just anyone." His voice was dead on Humphrey Bogart. He pretended to take a puff of an imaginary cigarette. Michelle giggled.

The first round of food came out of nowhere, at least 8 waiters descending on their table from thin air bearing veritable mountains of food. There were pastas and breads and steaming piles of meat swimming in cheeses and oils. Cam's salivary glands went into double overtime. She almost dropped a long strand of spit into her lap and managed to catch it in her drink glass as she wrapped her lips around the straw to keep herself from drooling in public. Cole gave her thumbs up for the stellar catch out of the corner of her eye. She didn't even blush this time: too exhausting. She grinned instead and nodded her thanks.

"So. Much. Food," said Michelle in a monotonous voice, glancing around the table.

"These are only appetizers," warned Cole. "We still have salads, soups, then the main course, cheese, fruit with wine and finally dessert. Oh, and cappuccinos at the end."

"How…" faltered Cam. "You ordered _the house_!" she accused her voice rising at the end.

"If you can't finish I'll be angry," Cole said sweetly, with a guileless expression that fooled no one.

"We need backup," Cam said fervently. Michelle whipped out her cell phone.

"I'll call Derek." Cam looked at Cole for permission. He waved her on. She whipped out her own phone.

"I'll call the lab."

She was lucky; it was the end of the day and close to 5 pm by this point. Angela was enthusiastic and within half an hour their table was growing crowded. Derek had come first, introducing himself and quailing under Cole's sweetly grilled questions that had Michelle laughing and Cam choking on the feathery light hot bread drenched in olive oil. _So the man knew food_, she acquiesced to herself_. Doesn't mean he knows everything like he acts. _

The lab came as a pack, save for Sweets and Booth. Brennan actually smiled. "Sweetie," enthused Angela, sinking into a seat, and winking flirtatiously at the doctor. "I knew he was more than _just _a doctor." Cam felt fluorescent, blushing at all the ribbing. She didn't think she had ever been more in the center of her lab family than at the moment.

She realized with a sense of shock as time slowed, what that bubbling hot feeling in her chest was: it was happiness. Real, enduring, happiness. On the heels of that thought came a far less pleasant one: she couldn't remember happiness feeling like this. It had been a long time. More than a year…maybe even two. Or had it been a decade? Maybe two? Cam felt her smile falter at Hodgins' joke and caught Cole's feather light touch under the table. She turned her gaze, frowning in question, his face shadowed in the dim lighting she had grown accustomed to. He had been watching her. His eyes squinted a little as they looked at hers and he gave a self deprecating lopsided smile, squeezing her fingers gently under the table. She gave him the tiniest smile she had in grateful response. His hands jumped to her knee and squeezed. She jumped and laughed, fully returned to the moment.

She desperately hoped Booth wouldn't ruin the party by bringing Hannah; she was lucky. He turned up with Sweets, looking a little irked with the kid. They both brightened perceptively at the loud, laughing table. Cam was happy to see all of the interns there, even Daisy, laughing with the lab family; she had called them all, knowing what it was like to maybe have no where else to go. In line with her intuition, each had accepted the invitation with alacrity. Cole was talking intermittently with Wendell and Clark seriously, and absolutely mocking poor Nigel-Murray who was taking the humor with a good stride. Even Fisher was smiling.

The food was _overwhelmingly_ incredible. Everyone said so and everyone stuffed themselves. There were still platters and platters of food left over to the disconcerted Emilio who came to scold them all thoroughly, and ended up enchanting Angela and Brennan, though neither, under the scowls of their partners, were subjected to Michelle's scandal. Michelle though, was lively recounting it to Hodgins, who had a hand over his mouth, her boyfriend Derek, the pink tinted Sweets, and Arastoo.

By the time the wine had been passed around, Cam realized it wasn't their large party creating all the loudness. Rather, the restaurant was _packed_. She was definitely sure that it was a several dozen people past firecode as every table had extra chairs squeezed with people. Everyone was loud, brash and laughing. One table was dancing to the Italian opera music in the background with the waiters in the little cramped space they had. It was like the last vestige of an Older World was crammed into this little unassuming corner of DC. Cam reluctantly admitted to Cole that he had been right; it was incredible.

Michelle stood up but Cam thought nothing of it until her daughter began to clink a knife to her glass of water. It took several clinks to get the attention of everyone (except for the oblivious Booth and Brennan who were wrapped up in each other) and several more clinks to get relative quiet.

"Cam has an announcement," she said smiling, and abruptly sat down. Cam, eyes wide, unsteadily stood, grinning foolishly.

"Everyone," she swept her arm out, swallowing. "I'd like you to meet-" there was a collective indrawn breath as she put a hand to her stomach, "my new daughter, Madison Antoinette." She never got past the name before the rest of the lab, tipsy and laughing full of red wine, jumped to their own feet to mob her, crying and laughing, full of congratulations.

Booth squeezed her so tightly she thought she'd throw up the (most probably literal) five pounds of food she had ingested. Angela proclaimed it was a beautiful name and Michelle was busy telling anyone who'd listen that they were going to call her Toni after Cam's brother. And for the first time, Cam didn't even care that new people were finding out about Tony. He would have loved the party.

Someone was being loud at her elbow, gesturing for something. Cam knew he wasn't addressing her and continued talking animatedly to Hodgins across the table. Booth joined in. The insistent voice continued. Cam irritably swatted at the hand tapping her shoulder. She turned; she could immediately tell Cole had been drinking – not in a drunken kind of way, but in a doofy smile and glassy eyed tipsy kind of way.

"Jade. Jade," he tapped her again. It took Cam several seconds to understand but only one tenth of one for her eyes to slide closed. She turned as if the world were in slow motion, the lamps gleaming like dim stars and the waiters suddenly languidly walking where in reality they bounced about in stop motion.

"JADE," Cole called loudly and Cam turned the last few inches quickly, the sudden hush at the table probably louder in her mind than in real life.

"I…" Cam didn't know how to correct him. She held out the breadbasket mutely as his own eyes caught up to his slip. He wasn't inebriated; he wasn't even intoxicated. It had just been a slipup in the space of a breath. For an instant he had forgotten the tragedy that dominated his life, for that Cam was grateful grateful to see the lines of worry he carried proudly - wrapped up in childish jokes so no one could see the reality of his arrogance - finally disappear. But her heart ached for the crashing anguish that fell onto his features as he realized his slip.

"Oh. I'm sorry Cam I just…" he took a deep breath and cleared his throat. He stood abruptly, the silverware clinking. Very few people noticed, but Cam felt as if the party had suddenly been put on pause, only her and Cole still moving.

Without another word, he left the restaurant, moving towards the doors. It didn't take her a part of a second to think.

Without another word, she followed him out.


	19. Paper Tiger

**See how sad these two are? That's how unhappy I am without reviews. Even if you never review...do so please!**

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The shattering glass was a dead giveaway. Cam found him with his fist through a gaping hole in a nearby abandoned window that was completely demolished and the fragments littering the litter that was congealing out of the trash bin.

"What are you doing?" she asked furiously, suddenly and completely irked with his behavior. "That is such an _asinine_ move for a surgeon!" She grabbed his arm as he drew back for another swing, his face grim and murderous. His knuckles were not only bleeding but looked like X-Men's Wolverine with the shards of glass fixed between his bones.

"Just go away," he ground out. "I know what I'm doing. I'm not hurting anyone."

Cam didn't have to say _not even yourself,_ because he heard the words anyway in the undercurrent between them. He grimaced in response.

"I'm sorry," he grunted as he swung for the glass again, which was already mostly gone; if he hit the metal of the garbage bin, the glass already lodged in his hands would sever his tendons, effectively ending his career. He seemed surprised his movements were so laborious and looked down as if seeing Cam, panting and holding on with two hands, for the first time.

"What are you doing?"

"Saving your perfect ass," she spat through gritted teeth. He stood posed for a moment, arm raised and Cam's entire weight hanging off of it, her toes barefly touching the ground before he slouched, the tension and anger sloughing off of his body. Some measure of his humor flitted dully across his face.

"You're an angel, you know that?"

"If I had known I needed to be a guardian, maybe I would have reconsidered," she said lightly.

His face crumpled as if she had carelessly tossed a Kleenex by the side of the road.

"I'm sorry I called you…Jade," he forced the last word out through hissing teeth. "You just…don't understand." Cam let go of his arm and stared at him; she realized he was shining in the silvery moonlight. His grey eyes were the same color as the glittering metal bits that glinted beneath the stars.

"I do," she told him honestly. His face twisted.

"You don't," he said shortly, turning away and surveying the glass with renewed interest. Cam knew it was so she didn't see the tears in his eyes and maybe on his face. "It's different when you lose a sibling and when you lose…lose a…wife."

"Did I ever tell you about Andrew?"

"Who?" he was still talking to the garbage bin. Cam tugged on his arm, turning him around as she spoke.

"Michelle's father."

"What about him?" He pulled his hand out of her grasp to tuck his arms over his chest, as if folding them over his heart would protect it.

"I knew Michelle," Cam started, also crossing her arms and looking at the gravel alley on the side of Emilio's, "when she was just two years old. That's when I first met her. Andrew – her father – we were dating…we," she cleared her throat and forced herself to look at Cole who was now looking at her face, reading it clearly since the conversation was no longer about him. She let out a huge blustery breath, feeling it tickle the crying feeling that was tightening like a snake around her lungs. "We…were engaged." Cole's eyes widened. She could see it, even if she wasn't looking at them. She watched, shuddering a little, as a rat scurried by. "Michelle's mother had died about a year before so-" Cam looked up suddenly, trying to enforce her point, "It's not strange or too early for you to start dating. It took Andrew about a year after her death to begin dating again, so you aren't the only man who struggles with the guilt."

Cole swallowed heavily. He opened his mouth to say something but stopped when seeing Cam's upturned, outstretched hand, forcing him into silence as she continued.

"I loved Michelle from the beginning. I changed her diapers. I rocked her to sleep. I listened to her nightmares and drove her to preschool. When Andrew proposed, I said yes. I already lived with them and they were…well, I thought they would be my family." Cole's gripped fists suddenly transferred their energies by wrapping tightly around her forearms. He ducked his head down, straining to catch her gaze.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you need to hear it," she snapped and took a cleansing breath, trying to keep her temper. "I'm sorry I'm just –"

"Don't you apologize and say you're tired," said Cole angrily, shaking her physically, his hands still tight on her. Cam's shut her gaping mouth with an audible snap. That's exactly what she had been about to say. "You do that too much. _I_ do that too much. It's too easy to pretend you're tired all the time, even if it's true. Let's be honest here. Don't say you're sorry anymore. Don't tell me it's nothing. Don't tell me you're tired. Deal?"

Cam jutted her jaw obstinately before she grabbed his right hand and furiously but competently began to pick out the protruding shards of glass.

"You were talking about being engaged?" he reminded her hastily. Cam felt her face twist with pain instead of her usual annoyance. Cole didn't ask but suddenly gathered her into his arms.

"He was still sleeping around," Cam sighed heavily into the sleeve of Cole's jacket. "I thought once it was official…he'd…I don't know…think I was enough."

Cole backed away, bending to catch her eye again, doing his disconcerting habit of tilting her head up, gripping it a little too firmly to be polite. She had no choice but to either look at the skin of his wrist or the skin between his eyes.

"You listen to me," he growled. "You were enough. You are enough. The reason he was sleeping around had to do with the kind of person he was and what went missing with his first wife. Apparently it was his fidelity. Now that had nothing to do with you." Cam swallowed and she saw his grey eyes follow her adam's apple down her neck and back up to the base of her throat, never once relinquishing his hold on her face.

She had to ask. But she didn't ask out loud. He was smart though, and answered her eyes anyway.

"I didn't lose my fidelity, but I did lose my sense of propriety."

"I don't know," Cam said slowly, a whine creeping in, "you seem pretty practiced to me. You sure you weren't always this incorrigible?"

"You like me because I'm a scoundrel," he said with a slow grin.

"I happen to like nice men," quoted Cam. Her heart was hammering as his grin grew the littlest bit bigger.

"I'm a nice man."

"No you're not," she managed to squeak into the last few seconds of space before his lips met hers. He pulled back too soon for her taste; she hadn't slept with anyone in months. She looked down at the baby bump between them and groaned to herself. Looked like it would be a few months yet.

He laughed, reading her thoughts.

"So what happened to Andrew?" he asked seriously, as if their kiss didn't still linger in the steaming air in contrast to their puffed breaths and her freezing fingers.

"I left," Cam said quietly. "I took Michelle to school, and I kissed her on the head like always…she had just turned four." Cam realized with a little embarrassment, she was crying only when he wiped her cheek with a thumb. She let out a little shuddery breath before she continued. "Then I packed my bags and wrote him a note."

"You wrote him a note?" She didn't know how he did it, but that man was as sharp as a whip. She grinned reluctantly.

"Yes…on a condom." He laughed.

"What did you do that for?" Cam sighed, frowning.

"I don't know, I was young and hurt and I thought I had found The One. I thought I had found a functional family that was just broken enough that I could fit in."

"What?" his voice was light but with a thick layer of tension that made Cam tense with his accusation. She ignored it. She didn't want to get into her self-righteous beliefs right now.

"And this _does_ compare," she said sternly because his attention had wandered. "Because two years ago, the body brought to the Jeffersonian…" her voice went all garbled with the memory, "…was his. He had been eaten by a tiger. Fed to a tiger actually. A woman he had cheated on stabbed him."

"Jesus!"

"And…well…I figured it was a second chance to see Michelle. It didn't go well at first," she conceded. Cole raised his eyebrows and nodded seriously before taking the task of rubbing her arms very seriously. She realized she could feel her very full stomach bouncing up and down as the friction of his hands rubbing against her shirtsleeves forced her to jump a little in place.

"I'd imagine not, after what I've seen."

"She was shocked and cruel, but it was understandable. Her whole life had been yanked away."

"Which time are you talking about?" asked Cole shrewdly. "When her father was murdered, or when Felicia drained her college fund?" Cam flushed a very dull red.

"And that's all," she finished defensively, glaring. Her pulled his hands back mockingly, as if her glare was scorching him. "I know what it's like to lose the one you love…Andrew and I weren't married but…"

"She died on the table." His words were abrupt as was the change in his face. "It was so fast."

"Hemorrhage?" Cam asked in confusion. "Because any self respecting OB/GYN could stop that fairly quickly."

"So I'm aware," he said tightly, "I happen to be a doctor too." Cam tightened her lips into her signature smile.

"Right. Sorry."

"Aneurysm," Cole said in response, his face tight and his arms shaking as he clenched his fists.

"_What?_" Cam asked in shock.

"We didn't know about it," Cole said morosely. "She had such a hard time getting pregnant that we were so excited, we didn't get anything done like a CAT scan."

"You couldn't have known," Cam insisted. "There was no need."

"Well, that was all fine until labor. She was doing great, really pushing and holding my hand, and all of a sudden on the big push, the baby comes out, I'm crying and her hand…" He sniffed loudly all of a sudden, wiping the back of his sleeve across his face. He was unabashedly crying. "It just goes…slack all of a sudden. Limp. And I look up, hearing Kitty cry for the first time right as I see her face. She's frozen, mouth agape, a fierce joy still in her eyes…Kitty was the last thing she ever saw."

"Cole, I am so, so sorry." Cam stepped into his arms but the way he clung to her was like she wasn't even there; he was simply holding her as a survivor of shipwreck would cling to a piece of mast.

"The labor burst the vessels of her brain and she was gone in seconds. There was zero pain except for labor. But if we had known, she would have had a c-section in a second. In a heartbeat." He snapped his fingers together; but the cold seemed to have frozen all of the noise out of them for they simply rubbed like broken cricket's wings, washed without sound.

Cam had nothing to say. She hugged him more tightly around the middle, burying her face into his coat. After a long second, he dropped his head on top of hers, digging his fingers claw like into her skin, trying to hold onto something that wasn't there. Someone who wasn't there. Cam closed her eyes, hating herself.

"I guess we should go back to your party," he finally said in a dejected sort of voice. "Get some coffee."

"Are you sure you're okay for this?" Cam asked him seriously. He looked down at her, pinching the bridge of his nose as he huffed a sigh and nodded.

"Yes. I'm fine. I'm just tired."

Cam let her heart join her stomach as she trudged back after him.


	20. Author's Note Don't Freak Out

Dear All,

As you may have noticed, my story updates have suddenly dropped into oblivion. So sorry! I _would_ post, but my computer has taken a very bone headed turn and is in the shop. For a week. And hundreds of dollars. All for moving at a glacial pace.

The chapters I have already half written are also on there; I don't have emailed copies. If my hard drive comes back wiped, I'll be glad to rewrite them, but until then (let's hope that never, ever, happens) I have to beg for patience as I twiddle and come up with new ideas.

Thanks guys; sorry this sucks. If it makes you feel better, I'm going stir crazy too.

K


	21. Broke The Bank

**Took forever. I now have 3 current stories. Check out my new Hodgins Universe. Review ;) I loved writing this chapter.

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"Wendell," choked Cam, touched by his persistence. His angelic blonde hair glinted in the light as he flashed her a proud, half arrogant smile as he continued to lean over her, clicking around her computer screen.

"She should apply here and...here...oh and definitely to this one."

"If she does this-" Cam started but Wendell quelled her voice with sober blue eyes.

"You have to remember Cam, she won't get all of these scholarships just because she applies for them."

"Michelle is a bright young woman," Cam reminded him, echoing Sweets. Wendell gave her a half finished self-deprecating smile.

"I'm a bright young man," Wendell informed her teasingly, "and I didn't get all of the ones I applied for."

"Well you should have," Cam replied. A blush suffused his features.

"Thanks," he said shyly, "but I really haven't done-"

"You have," she retorted. She thoughtfully minimized the windows on her screen, getting back to the test results as he sat on the corner of her desk, studiously _not leaving_. Cam glanced over at him, more charmed than irked, but faked a scowl in his direction nonetheless.

"What?"

"Have you-" started Wendell. He stood as if his stature would help him spit out something difficult to say. He shook his head, smiling tightly. "Forget it."

"No, what?" Cam asked, now honestly curious.

"I just mean...the lab..."

"Yes," said Cam impatiently, rankling him for his slow response, "we're in the lab..."

"I mean, the people here... they care about you very much." Cam swallowed.

"I know," she said quietly, honestly.

"No, I mean - that too - but what I'm trying to say is," Wendell fumbled for the words some more before he heaved a huge, slow sigh and met her eyes squarely. "Haven't you thought about asking them for the money?" Cam blinked at him, not having clear thoughts for several seconds. She wished she could simply start to her feet, but ever since the Italian dinner two weeks before, she had been feeling how heavily she was putting on the weight. She frowned; she should be retorting, but all she could think about was how much her back hurt. Bloody hell, pregnancy was a bitch.

"I've thought about it," she conceded at last. Wendell looked confused.

"Well, what's the problem then?"

"I would feel strange owing my friends the money."

"It's not like you'd have to owe one of them a ton - I know Hodgins and Angela have cash to spare - and Dr. Brennan."

"That's very sweet, but I just can't accept-"

"Charity?" finished Wendell. To her surprise his face was hurt, and angry. "Does that make you less of a person, if you can't pay for something yourself?"

"No, of course not," Cam rushed to assure him. She had put her foot in it this time.

"But you're saying, you don't want your daughter to be like me."

"Wendell, no, it's just that I don't want to owe-"

"Your friends? Your family? I owe my whole _town!_ Yeah, it's scary, and yeah, I'm terrified I may never be able to pay them back, but this-" he gestured at the encompassing lab, "-this is worth it. Sometimes dreaming is the way to go. And even though my dad isn't alive to see it, I know he'd be pretty damn proud. And I think that Michelle should be able to say the same thing." Wendell stopped suddenly, knowing he had just crossed one of those tentative lines they had around their semi-professional relationship. Cam hesitated, but let him have the critique. He was entitled to his opinion. The moment changed and deepened; now she was talking to an actual friend, one that wouldn't hesitate to yell at her if she were messing up.

"But you didn't...beg...did you?" she asked desperately. "I'm not too proud - I don't think - to want the best for Michelle if I can't afford it to let something as silly as scholarship stand in my way, but..."

"I did ask," Wendell informed her, his face serious but encouraging. "Because I know no one was going to do it for me. If I wanted it, then I would have to work for it. It turned out to be great and brought the whole community closer together."

"Let me think about it," she promised him. But in her heart she knew; she couldn't...she just couldn't. People never knew what they would need money for - just like Tony's illness. She was also fairly sure that whichever friend she borrowed from would conveniently 'forget' she owed them anything, which would only make her feel worse.

"Uh huh," Wendell said in an unconvinced sort of way. "Just remember this is about Michelle."

"I know that," she snapped at him and then felt badly; he was only a kid. He bucked up his chin though and she remembered he was old enough to meddle with Angela. _So wrong_, she sighed. That boy was brimming full of oxymorons.

"So where you going after this?" he asked, honestly curious as he stood, hovering, in the doorway. She smiled tightly.

"The bank. I'm trying to sort out the Felicia mess by unfreezing my assets in order to buy groceries. The only problem is how I explain it to them when I really have no idea what's going on."

"That's tough," he agreed, with a sad, twisted sort of smile. She let him go and stood, irritated with her aching muscles, to her feet. She had finally given up on high heels because her feet were so swollen that she could hardly walk in them with how unbalanced she felt. It made her more upset than ever, though, because of all the stark commentary she had recieved when she showed up in ballet flats. Angela was seven inches her senior, Brennan was six, Hodgins five, and even Sweets walked a good head and shoulders taller. As he had aptly said,

"I never realized you were so little!" Before he had shut up at her glower. She sighed and walked outside and Hodgins immediately flanked her right side. "Going to your car?"

"Yeah, I need to get to the bank."

"I hate banks," he informed her cheerfully. She wondered why he was walking right next to her but was touched when he said,

"I could drive you to your car."

"Thanks Hodgins," she said gratefully and he hugged her with one arm. He started laughing in a muffled sort of way, as if he were burying his mirth in the scruff on his chin.

"What?" she asked forcibly. He squeezed her again and she realized he was gloating since she came up to his armpit. "Sure," she mumbled sulkily. "Rub it in."

"It's those killer heels you wear all the time," he informed her with a cheeky grin. "We just never really noticed. Well, I mean, we _noticed. _Every guy in the lab notices."

Cam had the grace to blush in acknowledgement as Hodgins clicked his car keys. A Lamborghini's tail lights bleeped on and off. "Oh my God," she breathed as she reverently let her fingers trail over the lime green paint job of one of the world's most expensive cars. "You drove this to _work_?"

"Where else am I supposed to drive it?" Hodgins grumbled. "If I took it to the grocery store, somebody would just vandalize it. At the lab is safe. Besides, I don't get to drive it enough."

"And Angela still drives a mini-van."

"I'm working on it," Hodgins informed her as he turned on the engine. It growled so fiercely that Cam could feel it rumbling under her legs. The ride was over in less than a minute and Cam felt her face fall a little. Hodgins looked over as she hesitated to pop a butterfly door and get out. His face grinned in a terrifying sort of way.

"Want to take a spin around the block?" Cam, always a sucker for cars with so many male cousins, turned around, her face glowing.

"Well..." she wheedled but laughed when Hodgins had already left her sedate sedan in a screech of tires and they were pushing fifty as they neared the opening to the parking garage.

"Seat belts, everyone!" crowed Hodgins, honking the horn.

The next ten minutes were among the worst and best of Cam's life. Hodgins drove like a maniac and Cam was sure she was forfeiting her life in this endeavour. Yet it was almost worth it to feel the car skid in a perfect fishtail through traffic, donuts in an abandoned Church parking lot and cruise at ridiculous speeds down highways, too fast for cops to catch; but Hodgins knew all the speed traps and in 9 and a half high adrenaline minutes, Cam was sitting, idling and shaking, back in front of the dark tail lights of her own car. She laughed breathlessly and Hodgins joined in. They both kept laughing, grasping the handles of the doors as they recounted their adventures and shaking the car until a knock came on Hodgins window. He looked over and raised his eyebrows. Angela, hands on hips, was frowning at them. Cam released the door and it rose gracefully into the air as she stumbled out, still laughing breathlessly but trying to compose herself. Hodgins winked roguishly at his new wife.

"Need a ride?" Her face, at first irked, had caught some of their reckless enthusiasm.

"Twist my arm, why don't you," she teased and slung gracefully into the seat Cam had just vacated. "Did you have fun?" she asked Cam, right as Cam was going to helpfully close the door from above. Cam felt her face still in its huge hundred-watt smile.

"Good luck," she answered instead and slammed the door. She turned around and got into her own car, feeling just the slightest bit let down as her own predictable motor grumbled to life instead of roared and backed up, a smile still wreathing her face.

* * *

Cam wasn't smiling anymore.

"Denied?" she asked in disbelief to the clearly uncomfortable young teller at the bank. "What do you mean, insurance is denying me coverage?"

"Ma'am," and Cam had to force herself not to correct the appellation, "We're very sorry that your account has been cleaned out, but we've also received information that it may have been premeditated."

"What?" Cam asked, still confused and feeling the whole thing had a dreamy unreal quality. "What does _that_ mean?"

"It means," cut in the manager, coming to save the young blonde teller from her obviously hormonal rage, "that there may be attempted fraud." Her brain filled in the blanks and Cam felt her face contort with fury that didn't have enough energy to come out of her body. She felt that she was cuing the anger to flow forth only to realize that a lot of her bottled frustration had been taken out in that spinning car ride with Hodgins. She mused detachedly that she knew now why men liked fast cars as much as sex; they were a good substitute. For a brief second she despaired herself - she was such a boy. She wrenched herself back to the present, her fleeting second thought vanishing in a puff of smoke.

"So you're saying," Cam said calmly, and wondered why the two bank tellers were flinching as if she were causing a scene, "that you think that I emptied my own bank account under another name and am coming to collect the insurance?"

"Not you personally," winced the manager, quailing beneath her apathetic gaze. "But yes...there have been instances before this..."

"Is there any way to verify my sincerity?" Cam asked, breathing slowly and purposefully through her nose, her chest tight.

"We are doing everything we can," the manager said. Cam was sure he was supposed to sound reassuring, but instead, to her mind, he seemed accusatory. She hated banks. She hated money. She hated greed and lust and all those messy insurance policies. Why couldn't things just be simple? Maybe she should take a leaf out of Hodgins' book and hide her paychecks under her mattress or something. Beside her an old man was having issues with a young male teller. Cam didn't wait for an answer or more paperwork, she just resignedly turned away, sent up a brief prayer that Jared would find something - anything - and walked towards the door. She froze when she heard her name.

"Camille?" She turned around, not recognizing the voice. She scanned the faces for someone she knew and was about to turn away, sure she had imagined it, before she was enveloped in a hug by the old man at the teller next to her. "Camille," he enthused, hugging her again. "You look well. You look - good gracious, what is this here?" He leaned back, taking in her stomach. "Seems like someone has been getting some." Cam clapped her hands to her cheeks mortified.

"Hank!" she accused, half laughing and half joyfully. "What are you doing here? Did you escape again? Does Seeley know?"

"Now you leave that boy out of this," the old man huffed grumpily. He peered up at her under weathered old eye ridges. "And I did not _escape_. You make it sound like a prison."

"Mr. Booth," a woman came up to their little reunion. "Mr. Booth, we need to be going now. The bus is waiting." Outside the bank's glass doors, Cam could see a retirement home's bus idling in the drive lane.

"No," mused Hank, pursing his lips with customary Booth orneriness. "I don't think I'm going back right now. Don't you worry Nancy," he told the flustered young woman. "My granddaughter here will drive me home." The young orderly ran an experienced eye over Cam and then Hank. Cam felt herself blush and turned her eyes to the floor; their skin color was so obviously different it pained her. To her surprise the young woman gave Hank a stern glance.

"You better come back Mr. Booth, or I'll call up your grandson and tell him that his wife is out cavorting with you and not him!" Hank began to laugh wheezily and clapped the woman on the shoulder.

"You do that pet, you do that." With a roll of her eyes and a stern reminder to both Cam and Hank, she left, and they heard the bus pulling away as Cam made sure she threaded Hank's arm through her own. They walked three steps in silence before she turned her glaring eye on him.

"You told them I was married to _Seeley?_" Hank chuckled before glancing over serenely.

"I didn't say anything of the such, it was up to her to come up with how we were related."

"We aren't related," she reminded him as she helped him climb into the front seat of her car. He waved off her bustling hands, able to do the seatbelt himself.

"Sure we are toots," Hank told her clapping her ear when he meant to cuff her head as she buckled her own seatbelt. "I've known you since you were just a little girl."

"Nineteen is hardly little," she reminded him primly.

"When Seeley was off all night with a girl," Hank growled, with all the fright of a teddy bear, "I made sure I knew what kind of girl she was." He smiled benignly at her as she turned into traffic. "You were good for him. And Jared. You were like one of the family for so many years."

"I wasn't-" she protested, her throat closing. Hank was too astute. She had for so long, wished long and hard that Booth's family could be hers. Booth had seen it as a broken home. She had seen it as an escape from her own. He could only see Jared's flaws and the spaces where his parents were supposed to be. But Cam saw love, and Hank, and a younger brother. In her own house she had seen a man cleaved in half with loss, and two spaces at the dinner table that were empty. For Hank to pick up on why she hung around so much hurt her pride and simultaneously warmed her heart.

"We had our share of time together," Hank reminded her, patting her arm that was resting on the console. He had been right. Too many times she had blown up at Booth for being an ass, or been defeated after a case as a cop, too depressed to go back to her own one room flat, she had met Hank at a 24 hour IHOP "accidentally." Cam sighed, wondering how many had truly been twists of fate, and how many others had been the strong Booth genetics taking care of their own.

"What's wrong little bit?" asked Hank, still staring at traffic. "Is it the baby?"

"Oh no," laughed Cam a little too hollowly to suit either of their ears. "No, the baby is - I decided to -" she cleared her throat. On the one hand, she wanted to use Michelle's lie about sperm donation because it simplified the story. On the other, Hank belonged to an older generation, one not as forward thinking as invitro. Plus, she owed him the truth. She sighed heavily again, wishing her conscience wasn't so damn taxing. "I got pregnant." It was simple.

"On purpose?" asked Hank shrewdly. She shook her head.

"I didn't find out I was pregnant until nearly four months later." Hank started laughing that barking laugh that both Seeley and Jared shared but neither liked to admit.

"Oh sweetheart, you are full of surprises. You keeping it?"

"Of course," she retorted, insulted, when not two months before she had been asking the very same questions.

"Do you know who the daddy is?"

"Not exactly," she chewed her lip.

"Hmm," commented Hank. She scrunched up her nose in annoyance and turned into the parking lot of a steakhouse.

"My treat," she flashed him a white smile. "I know how much you miss steak."

"It's not good for my heart, they tell me," grunted Hank.

"When's the last time you had it?" Cam asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Since before you were pregnant, by the looks of it," grumbled the old man and it was Cam's turn to bark a surprised laugh at his quick wit. He grinned a slow grin, appreciative of her audience.

"You should be fine then," she informed him. "I'm five and a half months. If you haven't had a single bite of steak in six months, I hardly think I'm walking you to the electric chair."

"You're good to me," he said gruffly, and she squeezed her arm affectionately. She let the hostess walk them to the table in silence before she frowned seriously at him.

"And are we going to tell Booth about this?" Hank guffawed the way only grandfathers can.

"Of course not." Cam smiled reluctantly and sat down in the booth, watching Hank settle in a little more slowly and a lot less surely. She felt her face crumple and tried to smooth it over before Hank could see. There was no getting past a Booth.

"It's rough getting old," grunted Hank.

"You should try being pregnant," teased Cam. Hank's self pitying mood broke and he laughed loudly.

"I've missed seeing you around," he told her, his smile still tugging the corners of his mouth.

"I miss you all as well," she told him, sighing.

"Those were the good old days," he agreed. "For everyone except you." Cam immediately felt her guard go up, half affronted and half fearful.

"What do you mean, Hank?"

"Seeley told me a little bit about your past."

"Go on."

"About how you lost your mother." Cam swallowed, relieved but hurt at Booth's big mouth. She sighed to herself. She had to be realistic. They had been kids and Booth had trusted Hank completely. He had just been watching out for her.

"And my brother," she heard her mouth saying and before she could stop herself or draw breath, she started spilling out the whole story to Hank. About how she had loved playing with Tony and the tree house, her mother's favoritism and her closeness with Tony. How he had gotten sick just by falling down the stairs and walking with a limp. How then there was endless hospitals and waiting rooms and hot wheels trucks and bridal magazines in the children's section. How it had descended in three years and her friends had walked away and eventually the funeral and subsequently her mother's. She poured out all the things she had never told Booth in their childhood/adolescence when she had so desperately wanted to be a part of his family and was afraid of scaring him away. Now she felt he had aged fifty years and sat listening astutely, hardly interrupting, his eyes serious and brooding as they so often were. Hank and Booth were so similar, it often made Cam smile. But she hadn't smiled growing up realizing how jealous Jared was of the two men's relationship.

By the time she had gotten to the letter and the crutches, spilling the ugly truth about the pain of her lab family leaving her, her subsequent denial, Michelle's college decisions and Cam's own pregnancy scandal, both of their meals lay in small demolished bits on their plates. She stopped, almost panting for breath as if she had run long and hard. She gulped down half of her water and glanced surreptitiously at her watch. 5:45. She had been talking uninterrupted for over half an hour about things she never opened up to. She gasped a little shivering breath between indrawn water up her straw; maybe she had been a dam waiting to burst. Maybe she should have saved this for Cole, or even Booth. But Hank was so wise, and so old, and she trusted him completely, in a way she had never been able to get close to her own father.

Hank had been sympathetic when she had come back to the house hungover. He hadn't chastised her the way he had Seeley. He hadn't been her parent, but more like a very eccentric uncle - offering her dating advice unsolicited and reminiscing on her exploits without the condemnation he reserved for his own grandchildren. He had been both her mentor and her friend, and now she had given him everything she had as sort of a test run to see his reaction. If this man, who she had known for half her life, couldn't accept what he was hearing, then she would know she couldn't crush the lives of her lab family. Or anyone else. If Hank couldn't accept it, then no one could. She held her breath, waiting to see the results.

Hank's usually untroubled face was clouded with deep lines of worry and stormy unhappiness. Cam was immediately inundated with shame. She had caused him pain; Hank, an old man.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, touching his hand on top of the table. He drew it away from her and Cam felt her lungs seize up, her worst fears confirmed. She shuddered a little and resolutely fixed her swimming eyes on the table. She had been a fool.

She was surprised when the gnarled fingers returned, not to touch her hand, but the clench it tightly in its own.

"You should have told me sooner," Hank said forcefully, his voice hurt and angry. She glanced up, feeling one tear flick onto her face with her quick blink of surprise.

"What?"

"Don't you go thinking you've ruined my life," he growled at her. "I'm an old man with nothing to do. This is the most fun I've had in a long time!" Cam glanced quickly around and laughed a little.

"Listening to me whine and complain over steak?" Hank grimaced.

"Yes. But you weren't whining and complaining, so stop trying to bellyache at me that I'm an old man and you've hurt my feelings. Good God woman, I was in the _army_. You think a little thing like you has got anything on me?" He puffed up self importantly and Cam laughed some more, a little shakier than before her tirade as she sipped thoughtfully out of the water glass. She had expected more tears with her confessions, but she had been pulled into an undercurrent she had not expected, and couldn't stop to dwell and sob about every little thing before she was swept forward in her narrative.

"But a lot of things make sense now," he continued thoughtfully, morosely. Cam froze, unaware he had been watching her when they had been younger.

"What do you mean?"

"It's the way you used to eat everything in sight. Or the way you would run away from home at odd hours of the night to sneak into sleeping in Seeley's room." Cam blushed.

"You knew about that?"

"I knew about a lot of things, but I knew my boy better than anything. He is a good man. And he deserved some leniency." Cam suppressed a smile. Perhaps Hank's hardass attitude hadn't been quite what it seemed.

"Come on," she sighed. "We have to get you back before they call curfew."

"Or call out the dogs to hunt me down," grimaced Hank and he made her laugh again. She sighed as she offered her arm. She had forgotten how much she loved being around Hank. It was like Booth used to be before Hannah. Before war. When he could make her laugh all the time, even though she herself was the sarcastic one. She scrunched up her nose when Hank irritably swatted her arm down before offering his own, clearly informing her what chivalry was. He had also attempted to pay, but Cam, protesting over his grumbles, had paid.

"My treat," she told him severely. He scowled.

"You're making me look bad," he echoed Cole and Cam felt her mouth twitch involuntarily.

"It's just money, Hank," she waved him off. "It's not really worth anything. I can make more. And I think there's no better way of spending it than on the people I love." Hank's scowl had turned blushingly flattered and a wry little grin snuck onto his features knowing Cam loved him.

"You _are_ like a granddaughter to me," he told her severely as she glanced around the parking lot, and telling him she would bring the car around. Cam blushed and looked at the ground then back up.

"You're the best grandfather a girl could have," she told him honestly. "And always had the best advice."

"Like lime wedges are best with tequila?" he blinked sweetly. She laughed again.

"It's good advice," she reiterated. "The car's across the street. I'm going to go get it and bring it back."

"A young woman alone, walking at night?" Hank frowned. "I don't like that at all."

"Hank," Cam seethed, her peevishness so transparently false, he grinned at her tone. "It's six o'clock."

"It gets dark early in winter," Hank reminded her. It was true; the sun was down.

"Stay here, I'll be fine." She told him. She walked away without an answer and carefully and exaggeratedly looked both ways before walking across the street. Halfway across, she dropped her car keys and bent down to get them without second thought.

"CAMILLE!" bellowed Hank, and she looked up to see starry bright lights blaring a honk down at her. The next thing she knew she was being hit from behind with a force like a sledgehammer and taken to the ground. She rolled, dazed, her arms wrapped around her middle, protecting the baby. She looked up at the night sky as a car door slammed.

"Oh my God! Are you okay?" She was about to answer she was fine, when she realized the voice was no where near her. She sat up, aching, to see Hank groaning not two feet behind her. His tackle had saved her life. She rushed over.

"HANK!" She turned him over to see him grinning foolishly, his face skinned, an eyebrow missing and his arm scraped up. Her quick fingers told her nothing was broken and he didn't have a concussion. He smiled at her as she helped him sit up, cursing under her breath.

"That's not very ladylike," he informed her. She pursed her lips and scrunched her nose and staved off laughter. This was unreal. Hank frowned. "What? Did I break my nose again or something?"

"No," Cam fumed, hauling him to his feet as she listened to the wail of the ambulance getting closer. "That's not it. Booth is going to _kill _me."


	22. As Useful As A Lead Balloon

**As always, I am always warmed by heartfelt comments and quotes. The conversation between Booth and Cam was _not_ where I was going with it at all. It totally wrote itself from the narrative; I was just the fingers that typed. I too, was scandalized by Booth, but it fits his current profile.

* * *

**"Cole, hi," Cam said warmly into the phone.

"Why do I feel like this isn't a social call?" he drawled. Cam could hear a baby screaming very close to the vicinity of the receiver.

"Are you on call?" she asked guiltily. The screaming was suddenly reduced, as if he had put one of his daughters down in shock.

"What's wrong?" he asked immediately, his drawl gone and his doctor bark echoing over the line. "Where are you? Do you want me to come get you?"

"I'm in the ambulance," she said automatically and winced, knowing that was probably the most foolish thing she could have said.

"_What_!" he bellowed. "What's going on? What happened? What-"

"I'm _fine_," she bellowed right back and the tiny enclosure rang with her bitterness. On the bed, ornery Hank chuckled and swatted a paramedic away not at all feebly. He didn't like being there watt more than she.

"Ma'am," suggested an orderly tentatively, "you should really keep your blood pressure-"

"I'm fine," she snapped at him and turned back to her conversation with Cole. "_Dr._ Hart," she stressed his appellation as she seethed. "Can you _please _come see a friend of mine?"

"What happened." It was phrased a demand, but it came out as a command.

"I was almost hit by a car." The complete and utter silence from the other end of the phone was worse than if he (as Booth would have) had _roared_.  
"It'll take some time for me to call up Sally-"

"Bring the girls," she interrupted. "It's fine. I'll watch them while you look Hank over."

"Hank."

"Booth's grandfather," she said testily into the phone. "Not that it should matter to _you_," she seethed. She realized every single person in the ambulance was staring at her face. She flushed.

"It matters quite a lot to me," snapped Cole irritably. She could hear the soft whooshing of a seat belt over a car seat and the cranky noises of tired toddlers.

"Cole," she said his name quietly, half turning her face away for a modicum of privacy. She realized as she looked out the windshield that even the driver was staring at her, and she met his eyes in the rearview mirror. He guiltily turned them back towards the road. "Be safe."

There was a long, drawn out sigh, as if he was seething irritably but held his breath and let it out slowly.

"Always," he promised.

* * *

Hank and Cam were already in the waiting room when Cole Hart walked through the doors, each arm holding a fussy toddler. Heads turned expectantly at the sight, and Cam could see how hard this was for him, to walk proudly and alone, with his two daughters when every nurse was wondering where his wife was.

"Hey," she enthused falsely, rushing over and rescuing the façade. She immediately took Kitty, the younger girls sleepy and scrunched up eyes looking a particular smoky bluish lilac in the light. "Hi Kitty," she spoke to the baby, as if it could understand. Kitty immediately burst into tears being yanked from her father's arms into a stranger's. Cam panicked. "Hey, hey, hey," she soothed, sliding Kitty to her hip and bouncing as she paced.

"The Rock n' Walk is a classic," wheezed Hank, clapping her on the shoulder, "and you're doing it all wrong." Without so much as a by-your-leave, he plucked the baby from her arms and proceeded to bounce it in a very selective rhythm on one hip. Unfairly, in Cam's opinion, Kitty gurgled with glee, waving her chubby arms around.

"Let me guess," said Cole drolly. "You're Hank."

"Did the missing eyebrow give it away?" Hank beamed. His face was already bruising around the scrapes. His eye had blackened into a real shiner, and both his cheek and forehead were covered with cuts and bruises. Similar skid marks were visible on his bandaged forearm.

"Did you get in a fight?" Cole raised his own, intact, eyebrows. Hank's eyes lit up.

"Oh, that'd be a good one to tell people!"

"It's better to say you saved the day by pushing me out of the way of an oncoming car," Cam reminded him testily.

"You're dead," Cole cheekily chirped at her and then stopped, puzzled, right in the midst of shifting Andie's weight from one hip to another. His sentence had echoed strangely. Cam watched Cole's expression shift from humor to abrupt foreboding. She didn't have to know what was right behind her, but she turned around anyway.

"Dead," repeated Booth, shaking his head in tidings of grim reparations. She shrunk under his glare.

"It's not my fault!"

"I get a call from the nursing home, asking where Pops is, and they tell me my _wife_ took him out to dinner." Booth folded his arms accusingly. Cam could hear Cole's thoughts from ten feet away without turning around.

"_I_ didn't tell them that. Ask Hank!"

"Pops," Booth spat through gritted teeth, right as his grandfather turned around. His jaw went slack. "Pops! Oh my God! Oh God! Your eye! Your face!"

"Son," Hank growled through teeth used to clenching cigarettes. He had often used his militaristic tone on young Seeley when Cam had been growing up with them. "Shaddup."

"He got _hit_ by a _car_?" Booth spun Cam around forcefully.

"I didn't get hit by a car," Hank said irritably, still holding Kitty, who was sleepily but smilingly tucked into his shoulder. "And will you stop interrogating Camille? She didn't do anything."

"She didn't –" Booth started outraged, but his face went garbled with his voice. "Pops – what are you – who's baby-"

"Mine," Cole finally offered, holding out a hand. "Hey." Booth shook it automatically, not even seeing Cole.

"_Yours_," he managed before Hank continued.

"Seeley, if you quit your yammerin' for one second, I'd like to introduce myself." He turned around to talk to Cole but then spun back to Booth, a frown creasing his face. "And it's been too long since Parker was this small. I'm not getting any younger; when are you going to have some more of these things?"

"Pops, Hannah and I-"

"Not with Hannah," barked Hank, as if Booth was being incredibly dense, "but with the woman with the pair of steel ovaries!" Cam had retreated to stand by Cole, happy to be out of a little (grand)father/son spat. She saw Cole's jaw drop and a huge coyote grin plaster itself over his features. Andie grinned too, her face already taking on the identical markers of her father's smile.

_Steel ovaries_? He mouthed at Cam. Cam, smiling too but unsurprised at Hank's astute description of Dr. Brennan, shrugged in response.

"Hells bells Shrimp, look at Camille? Did you knock her up?" Booth went scarlet and Cam winced.

"_NO!_" he bellowed, "Jesus Pops!"

"Do not take that tone with me son," growled Hank, handing the somehow still drowsing baby to Cam's surprised arms. "And don't take it up with Jesus!"

"I…I…" stuttered Booth.

"And look at her again son, take a good long look. Camille is ahead of the game, and as far as I know, she's not dating anyone!"

"Wrong," chimed Cole, under his breath, talking to Andie, who was more awake than her sister. Cam blushed a little; she had supposed they were dating, but it still gave her a warm feeling for Cole to confirm it.

"I love Hannah!" Booth argued.

"Wrong again," breathed Cam back to Cole.

"If you love Heather so much," started Hank blithely.

"_Hannah_ Pops," Booth grated.

"Then why have I never met her?" There was a stifling silence that was making Booth sweat; Cam could see it trickling down his collar.

"I haven't met Hannah's family either – we're taking it slow."

"Slow," snorted Hank, "right. In _my_ day, it wasn't seemly for a man and a woman to move in before they were engaged."

"_Engaged_?" Booth choked. "We're not engaged. We're not _going_ to be engaged!"

Cam didn't know if she was the only one who noticed the preternatural silence that followed Booth's statement. Even the babies were wide eyed, open mouthed and quiet. She caught Cole's interested expression and knew the importance wasn't lost on him either.

"Well then," huffed Hank with a smug little smile, "what the hell are you foolin' around for? You're not twenty son."

"I know how old I am," snapped Booth, stung by Hank's clever trap.

"Bring this girl by," shrugged Hank, as if it were of no importance. "Or not. Either way," he beckoned Booth closer and Booth unwillingly came, unable to face up to his parental figurehead. Gnarled fingers dug into the flesh of Booth's neck and shirt collar as Hank twisted his ear. "You come by and we're going to have a _long_ talk champ. Got that?"

"Got it," grunted Booth, straightening up and gently disentangling himself from his Grandfather's reach. He looked chastised and confused; his public set down obviously rankled him. Of all the people to break the awkward silence, it was always Cole.

"Cole Hart," Cole introduced himself to Hank. "Heard you're quite the hero."

"You the doctor?" grunted the old man.

"Surely am," drawled Cole in his Boston Brogue. Hank appraised him a good moment and pointed at the girls.

"These yours?"

"Yes sir."

"You cheating on your wife with my Camille?" He said it so blandly that it was a beat before the words were processed all around.

"_Hank!"_ she exclaimed, scandalized at the merciless grilling. Cole half smiled as he automatically took Hank's pulse and tilted his face towards the ceiling to stare at the scrapes. Booth unabashedly leaned forward, eager as his snooping grandfather to know.

"I'm not," Cole said calmly. "She's dead."

"Oh," Hank looked immediately uncomfortable and pulled away. "I'm sorry to hear that. Mine too."

"Then you know what it's like," Cole said dryly. The aspect of soldierly comradeship seemed to warm the frictionless air between them, because Hank nodded smartly and about-faced, waving off both Booth and Cam. Booth looked down in amazement and Cam realized that somewhere in the ensuing conversation, he had been handed Andie and he had taken her automatically.

"Be back in a moment son, they always take precautions with a body this old."

"You're practically a fossil," grumbled Booth. Hank shot him a severe glance.

"Now I heard that." Booth grinned a tiny little Parker smile that warmed Cam's heart. His boyish side had gone missing with Hannah. Brennan and Booth were perfect because she accepted him for who he was: a gigantic and well formed man whose entire frame hid a little boy. He was impulsive and prone to tantrums. He loved games, and children, sports and competitions. He had unwavering loyalty and a fierce devotion to his family. He had a short temper and a quick laugh. He loved to get dirty and hated doing "homework" at a desk all day. Brennan accepted him and played with him. She rolled in the mud, so to speak, and took care of the things he didn't like to do. She ate French fries and danced at bars undercover. She indulged in his whimsical side and he couldn't have found a more suitable playmate.

But with Hannah, Booth was suddenly an adult. Their relationship was built primarily on physicality. It was built on passion and lust, adrenaline and war. Booth was more serious around her, more grown up, as if he were trying to sell her on the idea of a white picket fence and a golden retriever, when that wasn't his style at all. He was conforming – changing – to what he thought she wanted. Privately, Cam wasn't sure if _Hannah_ knew what Hannah wanted.

Cam had been missing her boyish, childish and charming best friend. But here Booth was, smiling like a fool as his scratched up grandfather preceded her…whatever Cole was…through the ER swinging doors. He turned to her and they in synchronization, sat.

"He's good," Booth said abruptly. Cam chewed on her lip in frustration. Typical Seeley, leaving the cliff hanger. Good what, exactly? _Good company, a good man, a good manipulator, a good doctor?_

"Yes," she said quietly, and looked down to realize she was holding Kitty in her arms as the toddler dozed fitfully on her shoulder.

"How are you?" Booth asked her, stroking the longish hair of a fussy and confused Andie. Cam knew by his tone he wasn't asking her out of professional courtesy or for a conversation filler. She had to examine herself before she spoke.

"I'm…okay." His face hardened a little, like plaster in the sun and Cam realized she was cementing his beliefs in his own futility. "Don't…" she said quietly, touching is arm before tentatively squeezing it. "Don't worry about it."

"Don't worry about it?" he echoed hollowly, and she flinched as if he had screamed. "Don't worry about Pops being in the hospital, or you almost getting yourself killed? Don't worry about the lab falling apart or my friends looking at me when they think I don't notice? Don't worry about my relationship with Hannah or how not a single damn person supports it?"

"That's not-" she cut herself off. It _was_ true. She took another track. "We're your friends. We want what's best for you."

"What's best for me?" Booth asked bitterly, meeting the gaze of the linoleum tiles. "Or what's most convenient for you?"

"What?"

"Two people of the same friend group, easily pairing up so that no one has to expand their relationships to accommodate a new person. Yeah…right."

"Is that how you see us?" Cam gasped.

"_Us_?" he sneered. "When were _you_ part of them?"

"Since always," she defended loyally.

"I recall you wanting to fire all of them," he laughed sourly.

"Seeley," she said, keeping her voice steady; inwardly she was shaken by his cruel remarks. "What is wrong with you?"

"Wrong with me," he echoed again. He smiled a terrible smile. "Why is everything always _wrong_ with me? Why can't I do anything _right_ for once?"

"That is _not_ true," she snapped defensively.

"We were a team once," Booth grated out. "You and me. Lovers. Friends. Whatever you want to call it. I cared deeply for you."

"And did that just go out the window?" she asked waspishly, hurt by his use of the past tense.

"Apparently," Booth spat. "Because we aren't a team anymore. You may think you're on the lab's team, but ask anyone – ask Brennan – you're not on their team. You're not on my team. You're on your own. Cam you may as well be playing us all for your own cheap thrills."

"_Playing_ you?" she asked her voice high pitched with alarm and unshed tears. "Booth _what_-"

"Just keep out of this family," he spat. "Me and Brennan were fine."

"You think your falling out was _my_ fault?"

"You did it to Angela and Hodgins," he retorted. She flinched; that was low. But before she could open her mouth, reasoning caught up with her. She had slept with Grayson, Angela's ex. She had slept with Booth…She screwed up her face. No. He was just looking for someone to blame.

"You can't blame me-" she started heatedly.

"But look at the evidence!" he shouted and Cam realized their argument was drawing the gaze from almost every person in the waiting room. The baby awoken on Cam's shoulder and started to cry.

"I'm a _pathologist_! Don't tell me to look at the evidence!" her voice cracked on the last word.

Before Booth could do more damage, the doors swung open with a sharp snap.

"What's all this?" Hank scolded belligerently, gesturing at the both of them. "Fighting again? Will you two kids never learn? You aren't teenagers anymore."

"I'll take her," Cole said quietly to Booth, who reverently took his daughter from Booth's arms. His eyes, though, were on Cam alone. She didn't know what her face was saying, but she didn't want to find out. She cast her eyes towards the ground as Booth brushed past her.

"Come on Pops, let's get you home." It scored her heart to hear how gentle Seeley was being with his grandfather; how much love was there. It helped to contrast his voice when he had been talking to her.

"All right," said Hank uncertainly. "Camille, you'll come visit?" Cam nodded quietly at the floor and hugged Hank with one arm, the other occupied with holding and bouncing Kitty as Hank had taught her. "Atta girl," smiled Hank; his joy didn't reach all the way up to his eyes, and Cam knew that he and Booth had a lot of unfinished business. That, in a small way, made her feel better. They left with a stiff,

"Thanks for coming in," from Booth to Dr. Hart.

Then they were gone in Booth's black suv.

"I'll walk you back to your car," Cam said hollowly, and without waiting for him, turned, Kitty in her arms, and left out the automatic doors. She had crossed four steps over the yellow no-parking zone when Cole caught up with her and spun her around. She refused to look up at him, belligerently staring at the grass growing in a crack underneath one of his shoes.

"How are you going to get back to _your_ car, doll?"

"I'm not a doll," was the only answer her mouth could provide. She knew as well as he that he would be obliged to drive her.

"Camille." His voice was all deep and shuddery; it made her quiver and want to cry. She blinked furiously. That voice shouldn't be allowed. It was cheating her of her resolve.

"That's not any better than doll," she retorted. She hated her voice for sounding all breathy and weak when she was trying to conceal tears.

"Come on, just _look _at me." She stubbornly shifted her jaw to one side; out of the periphery of her vision, she could see him tilting his head to match hers, that cocky 45 degrees he always did. His imaginary ears were pricked forward and his grey eyes were intense. She finally clenched her teeth the littlest bit harder and looked straight at him.

Staring at his concern just made it a thousand times worse.

"What did he say to you? Because whatever it was, is not true."

"It's not important," she laughed self deprecatingly, letting her eyes flick away. He did that horrible chin grasping grip; she was forced to stare.

"It is important."

"It was true," she said quietly. "What he said was true."

"No," Cole shook his head. "Because I know that if it was true, you'd be mad."

"What?" Cam was puzzled; of all the things she had expected him to say…

"You'd be mad," he repeated. "If you knew he was right, you'd be furious with yourself for not seeing it sooner. Since you're all…" he waved a free hand to encompass all of her, "…crushed and wilty looking…"

"Crushed and wilty?" she interrupted with a wry smile. He smiled a little back, glad to see her expressing anything but that horrid stoic mask that wasn't stoic at all.

"Like a trampled flower," he swore. She let a smile tug around the corners of her mouth, her white teeth flashing as she lowered her eyes again. "It can't be true," he told her. She shrugged and started walking. He tugged her elbow and she sighed, exasperated.

"Can we just drop it?" she flared up at his insinuations that she was weak. He held up a hand, Andie already fast asleep on his shoulder.

"I was just going to say my car is that way." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Cam pressed her lips together, embarrassed.

"Oh."

They strapped the children in quietly and Cam allowed him to open the front door to his BMW for her. She buckled her seat belt and immediately shifted her entire body away from him, rolled over one hip as she leaned her head against the cold glass of the window.

He didn't protest, to her relief. Even he, winner of Mr. Incorrigible, knew when to back off. She closed her eyes and then opened them halfway, able to stare at the blur of rushing shadows crossing her face to the rhythmic hum of the tires on tarmac. A sweet smelling breeze was fanning her through the air conditioning and quick, darting pools of light were zooming in and out of her focus. She saw the lab suddenly and Booth standing in front of her.

"You don't belong here," he sneered. She opened her eyes a little wider to the tunnel coming up ahead. She realized she was silently crying.

_You don't belong anywhere, _her mind whispered.


	23. Dig Your Own Grave

Cole pulled up to her house silently. The lights were off and it was dark. He peered towards the driveway; the daughter's car was gone. He wondered if she was supposed to be. He glanced back towards his daughters. _You better never do that_, he vowed to them. They slumbered on obliviously. He knew they would though; they were going to be too much like him. Trouble makers.

"Home sweet home," he said cheerfully. At least, he attempted to fuse warmth into his voice. Little known to Cam, the cool glass of his BMW was reflective. He had watched her silently cry all the way home on the highway as he sat silently, unwilling to encroach when she was so proudly holding it in. What a stupid girl. He wanted to shake her; he wouldn't break under the onslaught of a few tears.

_But maybe _she_ would_, his mind sagely whispered. He grimaced and looked toward the passenger side. He could see her face reflected. She was asleep. He reached over to shake her, but his fingers stopped inches from her arm. He could carry her inside at the very least, or walk her to the door.

But his eyes caught on the rearview mirror. He couldn't leave the girls in the car alone. Not for a second. They were all he had.

_If I took one in one arm, and Cam in the other…._No that wouldn't work.

_How about if I unbuckled them both and then…_No that wouldn't work either.

_If I only unbuckled the kids, and then woke her up to carry one_…

Cole cursed. He would have to wake her up.

"Cam…Camille…come on doll, wake up." He shook her gently. She didn't move. "Up, up," he clucked encouragingly. She swatted irritably at him as if he were a fly.

"Hey…" he said a little bit more loudly, unwilling to wake his infant daughters up. It was much harder to get them back to sleep.

"Come on," he nudged her. She shrugged and whimpered as if he were bothering her unforgivably.

"Wake up."

"G'way," she mumbled, scrunching down farther.

"Cam," he said in his normal speaking voice. "Camille." In the back seat, Kitty shifted sleepily and he stopped. Well crap.

He leaned down and tugged her purse up from under her feet. He felt like a brute rooting around her personal effects. He fished out a key ring.

"Okay," he sighed. "Here we go." He opened the car door and struggled from his seat to unstrap Andie. She fussed a bit as he took her in his arms. Leaving Cam with a sleeping Kitty, he walked quietly up to her house, his daughter sleeping on his shoulder. He shifted her up as the jingling keys sounded too loud for the night. He frowned and cursed before apologizing absently to his daughter.

"Don't use words like that," he chastised her severely, as if she could talk, much less parrot. But it would be just his luck that poor Jade would hear her daughter's first word be an invective.

After the first three keys not turning in the lock, he finally found Cam's house key. He held his breath when he heard the alarm beep with the opening of the door. It didn't blare loudly, so he realized Michelle hadn't armed it. Excellent.

He walked into her house, feeling like a burglar. He turned on the nearest light. He turned on more and more, working down the hallway.

Michelle's room was dark. There was a bathroom. A linen closet. A cleaning closet. A study. Of course hers would be the last room in the hall.

Cam's bedroom was tastefully done. It was draped in blood red and ivory, the expensive ivory cotton comforter sporting a red abstract pattern along the bottom half. Perfect for her sharp, stylish and rogue taste. Cole glanced around and turned the bed down with one arm. He retreated to the den/kitchen; the first room through the front door. He carefully laid Andie on the couch. He pushed two arm chairs together. The scrape seemed preternaturally loud. He glanced out the window to the car to make sure Cam was still there.

He jogged swiftly down the hall and found a heavy blanket. He draped it into the makeshift crib between the two armchairs so that Andie couldn't roll out the sides of the plush sides. He picked her up and laid her back down. She didn't stir as he slowly slipped off her tiny shoes. He hated to leave her alone in the house, but he had to do something. He pushed another armchair up next to the edge of the couch and made another crib with a blanket inside.

He jogged outside, leaving the front door open so he could keep an eye on his daughter, before he opened the car door again. Cam had not stirred. He walked quietly and surely carrying Kitty back into the house and laid her down, slipping off her shoes as well. He threw an extra blanket on the couch where he'd be sleeping.

His last trip to his car was trickier. He opened Cam's door slowly; it still jerked her head and she woke with a grunting snore.

"What the-" she began. She was bleary. Cole put his arm under hers.

"Come on," he said. "I'm walking you home."

"Thanks," she mumbled unintelligibly. He slowly walked with her, clicking the lock on his suv. She didn't seem to see the changed furniture in her living room as she stumbled with him down the hall.

"I should change," she muttered.

"Just lay down," Cole urged her quietly. She sank onto the bed and reached pitifully over her distended abdomen. Without a word, Cole bent down and slipped off her shoes as well, holding her feet up as he swung her horizontally. She sighed as her head hit the pillow.

"Thanks," she mumbled.

"You've had a _long_ day," Cole reminded her. "You almost died."

"Don't remind me." Her voice was garbled. He covered her up.

"Go to sleep," he commanded severely. He flicked off the light and stood for a moment, hovering in the darkness, just a silhouette.

"No goodnight kiss?" she asked plaintively. Cole was shocked but laughed quietly under his breath. This one was full of surprises. Not an hour before she wouldn't even _look_ at him.

"Just one," he rumbled. He kissed her on the cheek and she whined, her fingers clutching his shirt.

"Cheat," she sniped.

Cole gently disentangled himself and backed away.

"I'll check on you later," he promised, desperation leeching into his voice. She was so innocent and adorable and so incredibly vulnerable.

"M'kay," she mumbled. She was already asleep.

Cole tumbled quietly onto the couch, careful not to shift his weight too much or too quickly in case he woke Kitty whose adjacent 'crib' used the couch as her crib wall. He closed his eyes and felt like a dick.

Damn, he should have kissed her goodnight.

* * *

Cam wanted to scream. Felicia was making those mewling sobs again. She listened harder before letting her feet hit the floor; they were coming from Michelle's room. She creaked open the door cautiously and sighed. Felicia sat ensconced on the bed, sobbing as if her heart would break.

"I'm…s…s…sorry," she hiccuped and Cam knew she had to accept the apology because she'd never get another.

"You should have asked," she reprimanded severely.

"I know," Felicia said miserably.

"Lisey…" Cam sank down next to her on the bed, but Felicia whimpered and tucked herself into Cam's limp arms. Cam allowed her muscles to tighten and hugged her sister fiercely.

"I had no where else to go." Felicia echoed Cam's own words hollowly. Cam nodded in understanding. "What's to become of me?" Cam pulled away and Michelle's tear stricken face gazed up at her as Cam hugged her tightly, comforting her about Felicia's indiscretions.

"We'll work something out," Cam promised her.

"Do you hate me?" Felicia whispered, sitting up on the other side of Michelle and facing Cam and her foster daughter. Michelle's face crumpled.

"Aunt Felicia," she said slowly, but Felicia had already gathered her niece into her arms, squeezing her tightly. She wrapped her arms around Michelle's shoulders and squeezed until Cam could see Michelle's eyes bulging.

"Felicia!" she gasped, watching as her sister slowly decapitated her daughter. Soon all that Felicia was holding was the gaping head of Michelle, who turned into a bawling baby with a shock of dark brown hair. Felicia's face twisted into a hateful mask.

"I _hate_ you," she told it vehemently, and threw it against the wall as Cam screamed.

Cam woke violently, drenched in sweat, curled around her pregnant stomach. She sat up gasping for air and fell back against the pillows panting. Felicia knelt over her and pressed a pillow to her face as Cam struggled.

"No!" she gasped. "No!"

"You murdered my family," Felicia smiled. "I'm just returning the favor."

"What?" gasped Cam as her sister forced her hand down on her larynx.

Cam struggled back to the sitting position. Her eyes were gaping wide as she stared around her room. Flashes of reality sunk into her dreamscape as the red color ran into the smear of her baby's blood against the wall.

"It's a dream," she whimpered. "A dream." She stumbled out of bed and hit the floor. She found herself lying face down, her face turned toward's Tony's.

"I always sleep face down," he beamed at her right as a shovelfull of dirt rained down on them. "And it's time to sleep now."

"No!" Cam cried, inching forward with her fingers clawing the ground. Someone was holding her arms and she struggled against it.

"Please," she begged, sobbing. Felicia stood grinning, holding a knife and the severed head of Michelle. Hodgins was holding a cotton swab to her daughter's dripping artery while Angela stroked Felicia's hair.

Booth was holding her back as she tried to run towards Sweets and Brennan, who were staring at her sadly. The interns were cloistered around a grave, the gravestone bearing her name, faces expectant as Booth carried her forward towards the gaping hole. She tried to open her eyes wider and wider. The hole wasn't dark black, but rather blinding white. It was coming for her and she struggled.

"No! Please! I'll do anything!"

"You don't belong with us," Sweets said blankly, waving comically as she was thrust forward. She clawed helplessly at the rims, the dirt smooth under her fingers, and too slippery to grasp.

"You don't belong here," growled Booth, and thrust her forward. Cam stared helplessly up as the sky opened and blood poured down onto her face.

* * *

"Cam. Camille. Dr. Saroyan. Cam." She came awake by pieces, dully staring ahead at the white walls of her grave. It probably doubled as an insane asylum. The blood kept dripping on her face; there was a horrible rushing sound, like Chinese water torture. Someone was shaking her. Why couldn't they leave her alone to die?

"Come on darling, wake up. Wake up!" _I'm awake_, she wanted to say. She could smell something sweet and vaguely turned her head to find it. There was a curious object next to her arm. She tried to raise a heavy hand but failed. It was slippery white and ridged. _A soap dish_, her mind finally informed her. She squinted a little. There was grout in the cracks. Something was slippery. The water - not blood - kept raining from the sky. She squinted upwards, uncomprehending until it came to her. She was in the shower.

What was she doing in the shower? Had she fallen asleep?

She looked down. _Dear God_, she thought dazedly. _I must have slipped, why else would I be sitting down?_ She also realized she was still wearing her black slacks and the black camisole she had worn underneath her shirt. She was stupid. She should know to take off her clothes. She gripped the sides of the tub, and realized that must have been the feeling of her grabbing the side of her grave.

She squinted around again.

"Hey, hey, are you okay? Are you awake now? Little bit, speak to me." Cam realized she was gaping, open mouthed, inches away from Cole. His face was white and petrified, and she realized his warm hands were wrapped around her forearms like manacles.

"I'm in the shower," she mumbled helplessly. He yanked on the shower handle.

"I know. I put you there."

"Why?" she muttered, bewildered.

"A…nightmare." He seemed to be reticent to use such a word. Such a mild word for a terrifying reality. "I came in when I heard you fall out of bed. I found you on the floor, crying and screaming." Cam continued to stare at him, stupefied.

"Really?"

"Oh," Cole seemed to realize something. "Oh I see, now angel, you're in shock."

"I'm in the shower," she heard herself say again, softly stroking the white porcelain. It was silky beneath her fingers. She realized vaguely they ached when she bent them.

"Let's stand up," coached Cole, wrapping a towel around her. "Get you to the kitchen. Do you like coffee?"

"I'm a doctor," she said dreamily.

"A pathologist," he agreed as he helped her bend her legs over the lip of the tub.

"So of course I like coffee," she concluded. He laughed softly as he led her past the sleeping children and flicked on the light in the kitchen. He put on the coffee pot as Cam came more to herself as she looked around, clutching her towel.

"We're in my house." Despite her disorientation, he still heard her question.

"I'm in your house because you wouldn't wake up so I had to walk you inside."

"You stayed," she said quietly. Carefully.

"I didn't want to sleep in your bed and Michelle wasn't here."

"Okay," she agreed, bewildered. He started opening cabinets.

"Where are the cups?"

"The mugs?" she corrected absently.

"Sure. Whatever."

"Next cupboard." He took down two as the water began to percolate in the pot.

"I had a nightmare," she said, coming more to herself and shivering. He glanced at her over the bar.

"I know," he said quietly.

"It was scary," she said.

"I know," he said, more quietly.

"I scared you," she guessed, her voice hushed. She felt her face flood with shame as her gaze dropped to the floor. He was immediately in front of her, tilting her chin with his irritating hands.

"Yes," he said honestly. "But only because I knew what terror you must be in. I _knew_." Cam began to cry helplessly.

"I'm sorry," she hiccupped as he gathered her, wet and shivering, and hugged her as tightly as he could until she could hardly breathe.

"_Don't _you be sorry," he snapped at her. "Don't you dare be sorry for something that wasn't your fault." _I can do this_, she breathed as her fingers curled into his shirt. _I can pull away. I can get it together_. She attempted to sit up but he had already sat down next to her and shifted her into his lap.

"Don't cry angel," he offered, and Cam realized that was one of the first things he had ever said to her. Her resolve wavered and dissolved. She sobbed in fear as she held onto his neck.

"What was it about?" he murmured. She shook her head violently but he coaxed and prodded her until she relented.

"It started with Felicia. She was crying so I hugged her…but she turned into Michelle…" Cam realized what had seemed so terrifyingly real seemed in retrospect ridiculous. "And then Felicia hugged Michelle so hard her head popped off." She paused again, dimly registering Cole was rubbing her back.

"That's not good."

"But then the head was a baby," said Cam, her voice dropping a register and Cole had to strain to hear her. She could tell because his entire chest flexed against her as he sat up more attentively, his hands never stopping their perpetual motion to keep her calm. She woke just the littlest bit more as she recounted.

"And Lisey…" Cam realized her voice cracked. "She…killed…she threw…" Cam shuddered and dropped her head back into his shoulder. Cole thought she was done but froze when she mumbled into his collarbone. "And then they were trying to bury me alive next to Tony and the tomb was white and Booth was holding me down…and I don't belong to the lab…and the sky was raining blood…" Cam gave up and started crying in a more normal, less stilted way. They both jumped, Cole's muscles frozen with rage, at the loud screech of the coffee pot beeping.

"Let me get that," he said, standing her up.

"I should change," she said soberly, staring down at herself.

"At least drink the coffee." He abruptly handed her the cup and disappeared to some sound she wasn't attuned to. He returned holding a fussy Kitty who was rubbing an eye with her hand. Andie was still slumbering.

"You brought them?" Cam whispered quietly.

"No," he said sarcastically, his face taut and drawn with stress and worry. "I left them in the car all night."

"What time is it?" she whispered.

"Only two."

"_Only?"_ she whispered again, with a twist to her words, smiling sardonically.

"I'm going to put her back down. Keep a cup for me?"

"Of course," she agreed automatically. She meandered down the hall past his quiet rumblings to his daughter to change. She slowly changed into different clothes and realized he was framed in the doorway as she glacially slipped a sock over her toes. She looked up, wondering how long he had been standing there.

"I'm sorry about tonight," she confessed. "And that I'm so..." she trailed off. He nodded, moving forward and Cam realized she hadn't even turned on the lights, desensitized and used to her room.

"Me too," he agreed. "Me too doll." She was too tired to combat his appellation.

"What're you doing?" she asked, and relalized her voice was shaking.

"I'm sleeping in here."

"Really now," she said conversationally, but her heart was pounding.

"Your couch is too small."

"I'm sorry you're a giant," she retorted. He stopped, hands in his pockets, staring down at her. At least she thought he was. He was a dark shadow against the moonlight of the corridor. He tilted her face as he leaned down as if talking to a child, putting his hands on his knees condescendingly.

"I'm crawling in that bed and going to sleep," he said pleasantly. "I'm _very_ tired and I had to wrestle a mad woman into the bathtub, and usually my women go more easily." Cam blushed to the roots of her hair, and opened her mouth right as his covered hers, tongue darting too quick to catch with her gnashing teeth and he jumped over her to bounce on the other side of the bed.

"Goodnight," he said cheekily. She flopped down next to him as he obnoxiously pulled the covers up to his chin and she had to thrash her way inside of them.

"What was that?" she snapped at the ceiling, turning her face to look at him. His teeth glinted whitely in a Cheshire smile.

"Your goodnight kiss."


	24. Chewing Nails and Spitting Tacks

**Guys. I'm stuck. Review and help? Total frustration, suggestions more than welcome!**

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Cam realized a baby crying had woken her. How bizarre. She squinted, blinking around, her hand brushing against the sheets to find Cole. His space was empty and cool. She sat up some more and opened her eyes wider. His voice was tumbling softly down the hall. Like a marionette she was drawn to her feet and floated down the carpeted corridor. She emerged into the open air of the den.

She could see his silhouette sitting on the couch, gently rocking one of his girls with tireless ease, the long nights of practice evident even to Cam's unpracticed eye. She was worried she was still dreaming; the nightmare had been so groggily real that she felt unabashed by gently touching his shoulder. It was solid, warm and jumped beneath her touch as his head snapped around so fast his neck cricked.

"You scared me Cam," he admonished in a whisper, his voice cracked and his sweet talk forgotten.

"I just wanted to make sure you were real," she whispered back, her voice slithering quietly through the cool air of the living room. She wasn't even embarrassed; this felt strangely like the confessions she had shared with her friends when the sleepover was dark, and facial expressions were erased from the equation. Anything could happen in the dark; any secrets shared. She wasn't afraid but instead came around the front of the couch and sank down next to him, pulling her feet up on the couch in much the same position she had shared with Angela.

He didn't ridicule her. "I'm real," he said wryly, "unfortunately." She cocked her head and didn't pounce on the semantics as she would in the daytime, but rather she studied his face; she could hardly see anything except a black outline.

"Unfortunately for whom?"

"You?" he hazarded, as if he were confused.

"Or for you? Your girls?"

"No," he said rather unwillingly, still gamely playing along to her unspoken inquiries about serious conversation instead of clamming up and laughing it off with a seedy pearl of a wisecrack. "I think I'm a good father."

"Better than mine," she smiled grimly. He glanced cautiously at her; her face, too, was completely blackened from view, and it gave her a freeing sense of anonymity.

"Oh, are we speaking of Daddy issues now?"

"Let me guess," Cam said wryly. "You grew up in a privileged family and your father never quite approved of you or your life making decisions. Either that or he pushed you so hard that you finally conformed to his idea of the perfect family and then rebel in your own small ways." Cole was grinning; she could see it glowing in the dark as he patiently waited for her to finish. He didn't speak though, and so she raised her eyebrows. "Wrong?" she asked in a small voice as he stood to drop his daughter gently back on to the deposit of waiting blankets.

"Now let _me_ guess," Cole said quietly, sinking down next to her and slinging an arm around the back of the couch thoughtfully. "From what you've told me…" he trailed off musing and quietly humming. "I'd say you were Daddy's little girl, but his favorite was always his first-born son. That means you were estranged from Mommy, but I'm sure your sister was her pet. Which means that you two girls were at odds, living on opposite sides of the family. But you always felt second best, and so when Tony died, you could never quite measure up." Cam realized suddenly she was shaking in anger, crossing her arms so tightly, she winced, realizing she could literally bruise her own arms. Her guess had been a shot in the dark; she hadn't realized his intuitiveness ran so deeply. He was always so ingratiating and smarmy, she never had given him much credence for getting it _right_. But here she was, wincing as he so bluntly detailed the life she was ashamed of. He was right. She had struggled with never belonging to either parent. Cole continued blithely.

"Your father saw himself in Tony and had planned his entire life for him. When his thirteen year old son got sick as he hit puberty, your father became more jovial, forcefully so, until it became exhausting to be around him. So after his death, you rebelled. Your mother didn't approve, and you suddenly had a thrashing wake up call when she died shortly afterwards, thereafter you radically reformed your ways. But your father had been so blind, idolizing the image of your dead brother, he expected you to stay that beautiful little innocent girl he had impressed upon when you were young. He didn't ever consider that you may grow up and change."

"Stop," Cam said quietly. She didn't shout or even snap, but Cole cut off his recounting that had been told with a cynically balanced tone between grim reaper humor and a droll frankness that hurt her ears.

"Too wrong?" he asked, a smile ghosting about the corners of his mouth in the dark.

"Too right," she said quietly, hugging her knees. "That wasn't funny."

"It wasn't meant to be funny."

"You knew you were right. You used that to impress me but also to hurt me. To get me to back off." She gave a few puffs of air to indicate laughter she couldn't quite muster. "Don't you think I'm the _queen_ of pushing people away, Cole?" There was an awkward pause.

"Sorry," he said in a sincere, dripping chocolate Boston brogue.

"I was wrong about you," she said, trying to resurrect some light hearted edge to a painfully heavy conversation. "You probably were your dad's favorite."

"I wouldn't know," Cole said quietly. "I'm one of seven. The middle. My dad died when I was fifteen."

"Oh," said Cam, startled. "I'm-"

"Don't be sorry, don't _say_ sorry." Cole's voice had heated with anger and…frustration? "You _know_ what it's like. And what it's like to hear over and over, how upset people are for you."

"We all wish sorry was enough," quoted Cam morosely, staring at the soft glow of light filtering through the shutters from the street lamp outside. "But we all know…it's not."

"Yeah," he said heavily.

"Can you guess what I'm going to ask next?" Cam teased with a macabre sort of humor.

"You'll want to know what he died of."

"Yes."

"A heart attack," Cole sputtered a false little cough of a laugh. "Most pathetic thing ever. Only in his fifties."

"Mom didn't make it that far," Cam sighed. "Not to mention…" she didn't complete the sentence, but it didn't have to be completed.

"Two deaths…the death of a sibling _and_ a parent…" Cole wasn't looking at her, his gaze trained grimly at the dark. "I can't imagine."

"You can imagine more than most," she said quietly.

"What was her name?"

"What?"

"Your mother. What was her name?"

"Why?" Cam asked, and then wanted to kick herself for being so churlishly protective of her memory.

"To pray for her," Cole croaked. "Maybe – you know – she may not be so far as you think."

"She came to me the day after she died," Cam whispered. "I wasn't just a kid either. She told me to look in her drawer; that there was something there for me." Cam yanked a little on the chain around her neck. She never took it off. They were silent. Cole didn't make fun of her. Perhaps it was the eerie darkness; the suspension of reality seemed completely plausible. Cam didn't say anything, but she was touched and confused at Cole's offer to pray. He seemed anything but religious. She cleared her throat.

"Marie," she said softly. "Her name was Marie."

"Is that your middle name?" Cole's voice was soft, but Cam still gasped.

"_How_ can you know that?"

"Because mine is William."

"Your father's name?"

"Yes."

"Can I ask you something?" Cam asked very, very softly. He didn't answer for so many heartbeats, she opened her mouth to repeat her query, afraid her breathy voice had actually only been in her head.

"Yes," he said heavily, right when she opened her mouth. Disconcerted she had to remind herself he wasn't answering the question she had in mind. "But I get to ask you one."

"Anything?"

"Anything." Cam bit her lip.

"I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"Your call," he said, folding his arms around himself defensively. Cam realized their forearms were pressed flush, their skin slick with sweat.

"What are the hardest days for you?" she said very, very quietly. She could feel his tense muscles straining as if he were leaning against an invisible hand.

"The days that used to mean something."

"What?"

"The days that used to mean something," he repeated raggedly. "April fourth, her birthday. May second, our anniversary. The day we met, the day we got engaged, _mother's day_ for God's sake…" Cole wiped a hand over his face. "All the days that used to mean something, and now it's like I can't even…I can't…"

"Remember?" Cam asked softly. Cole jerked.

"Remember?" he scoffed, "I was going to say forget. I want to forget, not Jade, but I don't want every month to have a day where I feel like I'm drowning." Cam breathed quietly, but wanted to put her hands over her ears. She didn't want to hear this. She didn't want to remember.

"You know what's even worse?" Cole asked with a morose sort of humor.

"What?" she dutifully responded. Instead she wanted to get up and leave, and crawl back into bed, and wish him out of existence. Out of her life. She had been so desperately lonely; she had also been a fool. Cole was too smart and he hurt too much to be around. He didn't play the victim until it was dark out, and that's when Cam's defenses were weakest. He was slowly seeping into her, like poison, threatening to unseal everything she had worked so hard to put away. She couldn't let that happen. She cross her arms again and pushed her knees up as far as they would go. She almost forgot she was pregnant until the hard little bump kept her thighs from touching her ribcage as they normally did. She squeezed her fingers into her arms a little harder, feeling her nails bite little crescents into her flesh.

"The days that used to mean nothing. Like how I've celebrated Halloween a thousand times but now its meaning is so different. It's not just the day of the dead, now it's her death day. But Kitty's birthday, and it's all so…so…" he scrubbed his hands over his face as if he could simply rip off the memory like a ski mask.

"Ensnared," she offered wryly. His hands dropped in the dark with his voice; his confessions had been approaching normal speaking volume, and they were both hyperaware of sleeping infants nearby. Cam felt the hard little ridge against her thighs. How had this happened to her?

_I don't want to be here_, she realized. She stood to leave, to walk sedately but in reality flee back to bed, away from too much truth. She wasn't like Brennan. The lies she had wrapped her life were protective. She pretended so much that it hurt when Booth pointed out the truth. She had pretended long enough that Booth was her family; so long in fact, she had tricked poor Hank into believing it. She had tricked herself by pretending she belonged in the lab until she felt she did. She had pretended she had been a part of Andrew's family and Michelle's new mother for so long, that it physically hurt her to find out Andrew was cheating on their triad of a budding family. Cam was a master at pretending, and she wanted to leave before Cole could rip what little glamour she had gleaned and expose it to the light.

"Hey," his voice was soft and shivery and Cam jumped away from his outstretched hand trying to snag hers as she stood. "I haven't asked my question." She backed slowly away as if he was about to attack her.

"I'm really tired."

He loomed to his feet as she backed up some more, knowing her house like the back of her hand and not missing a step down the hall. He followed her silently.

"You promised," he said quietly and his voice was shaken, hurt. Cam closed her eyes, not that it mattered in the pitch blackness as her hands stretched out behind her. She had hurt him. She was an idiot for making a promise she wouldn't keep. She opened her eyes and swallowed involuntarily; he had snuck the last few steps up on her with her eyes closed. She felt her back slam up against a wall as he leaned in. He wasn't Booth; he only put one hand up against the wall as he leaned in close.

"What's wrong?" he asked grimly. "Afraid of the dark?" Cam realized she was being foolish. He was right. She had let the dark go to her head. She straightened with a jerk, eyes flashing unseen to his. She attempted to brush past him.

"Are you coming to sleep?" she said as she rammed into his arm over and over and over again like a child trying to force its way through a set of legs lounging in the space between the couch and the coffee table. He didn't chuckle.

"Angel," he began.

"I'm not an angel, and I'm seriously cranky," she warned him. She knew she could be cruel if she wanted.

"What're you so afraid of?" he wondered aloud.

"The usual things," she snarled, attempting humor and failing miserably. "Death, spiders, you know the drill."

"Emotion?" he guessed.

"Try again," she hissed as she tried to duck under him. He leisurely spun his body around until he was forcing her hip to hip against the wall. "Get off," she spat.

"Afraid of this?" he raised his eyebrows. She ground her abdomen into him and then stopped, disgusted with herself.

"Obviously not," she retorted. "Can I _please_ go to bed now? We can talk in the morning."

"We can talk in the morning," he agreed. "But we won't talk about this. Somehow I know this is my one shot. And I don't make mistakes when it comes to taking things apart."

"Oh, you mean like your life?" Cam laughed bitterly. "Because you did a number on that one."

"You hardly know me." His voice was irritating. Calm.

"The same is true about me," she said, trying to match his calm voice. "You read my medical file, not my diary."

"Is this your master plan?" Cole asked, his voice laced with bitter amusement. "Try to get away and insult me until I leave?"

"I'm not insulting you."

"I can see your little head percolating up all these new painful barbs to throw my way," he teased, but his voice was serious. His face was too close; his breath too hot. She turned her face away and continued squirming.

"You're being ridiculous."

"Do you hope I'll fight back?" he asked musingly, as if still having a rational two way conversation, instead of answering himself. He stood away from her and the cool air disoriented her for a moment before she sprang for her door. She fled, feeling strangely like an animal as she marched huffily for her bed. She really wanted to dive under the covers, but settled for scrunching down in them and turning her back to him, hand childishly, and at long last, over her ear.

He strolled into the room, still talking to her/himself.

"Do you want someone to fight with? Do you want someone you can finally yell at? Do you want a punching bag for all those things you could never say to her? Even though now she's taken everything from you? From Michelle?" Cam ignored him, forcing her index finger deeper into her ear canal. The bed sank under his weight and she flipped to her other side, turning her back against him again. But his voice, on the contrary, was now softer, but she could hear it more loudly, reverberating against the sheets.

"Or maybe it's yourself you want to yell at. Or maybe you're scared of me." Cam stiffened, a dead giveaway. Cole pretended not to notice as he thoughtfully unlaced his shoes and unbuttoned his dress shirt some more.

"You're scared that when I see who you are, or what you've done, I'll run away." Cam didn't say anything, her muscles still frozen where her shoulders hunched as her fingers dug into her ears. She strained, unable to hear the tiniest sound now that he had stopped speaking and had lay down next to her.

Ten minutes passed.

Twenty.

Cam slowly unwound her aching muscles and stretched her cramped legs out. She flipped slowly onto her back, and chanced a glance at him. His eyes were closed but his face was turned towards her. She jumped when he spoke.

"You're wrong," he said softly, so softly that his voice was more a vibration under her hair than in her ears. "It's me you should be running from." She ignored him. She rolled back away from him on her side and stared into the dark.

Idiot.

Did he really think she would fall for him because he was sensitive and funny? Did he think he could charm her, being able to perceive what she felt so conveniently. Newsflash, most women felt that. She bet he had used the same speech on his wife. What an asshole.

But there were some things she couldn't shake. What _would_ she say to Felicia if she was given the chance?

_I hate you_, was the predominant thought, but mortified, Cam squashed it down. She couldn't _hate_ Felicia. She was family. Albeit not dependable or reliable or _desirable_ family, but family.

And she mostly felt frustrated that she herself failed at most attempts at relationships. There had to be _something_ wrong with her. Once was misfortune, twice bad luck, but three times? It wasn't a coincidence that all her serious relationships had backfired. That much bad luck didn't happen over and over again without a trigger. The first tear slipped out of the corner of her eye. She ignored it.

She was a good person. A good mother. About to be the mother of two. She didn't need to bring him into her life and rip his to shreds. He was just broken enough that she was tempted to believe she could live happily ever after with Prince Smarmy. But he had never seen pain, nor the kind of loss she had. Mentally girding herself for a trip down memory lane (which in her mind, lived in the slummiest of the Bronx neighborhoods), she felt another hot tear leak out.

He had lost his wife: a tragedy. But she had been lost in an instant. So had his father. Cam had been stuck in a war, watching Tony die for years, and then her family as it slowly shattered both before and after his illness, his death, her mother's death and the death of her father's smile. The death of the girl Cam used to be. That beautiful twelve year old girl, begging for snacks out of the vending machine, not really believing her brother would end up in a wooden box in the ground. Cam realized her face was hot and the alarm clock was unreadable. She hoped she hadn't made a sound.

He knew anyway. He didn't intrude, just placed a heavy warm hand on her shoulder. She let him roll her over and she stared stubbornly at the ceiling, refusing to meet his gaze with her watery eyes. He traced a finger over a cheekbone and she flashed an angry look his way, only to realize he had been tearing up as well. It broke her heart, and her spirit to refuse.

"What was your question?" she managed to whisper. He gave a half grin as he draped an arm around her. She lifted her head obligingly in order to pillow her cold ear against it.

"I was going to ask how you sleep at night," he confessed in his own hoarse whisper. Cam gave him a tiny smile.

"I don't."


	25. Murphy's Law In Effect

**So I suppose I found a plot...but since you guys didn't weigh in I'm afraid it's not a very nice one...**

* * *

When Cam woke up unwillingly the next morning, she sighed, shuttering her lids to glare at the offensive clock, which was unflinchingly reporting it was far past her usual early morning wake up. She realized Cole wasn't beside her when she heard the sounds of eggs breaking in pans and happy babies gurgling in high chairs. For the first time since she had gotten pregnant, Cam felt a flash of panic.

Maybe she was too old for this.

After that panic fluttered quickly through her, another deeper seated panic but shallower in mindset seeped in. What on earth was she going to say to Cole? This was the mother load of morning afters. She cautiously sat up, her head spinning. The late night conversation, the vicious nightmare, the goodnight kiss; the emotional roller coaster hardly seemed real. Cam pushed herself up with both hands and then grimaced in acute pain, wrapping one hand around her head and the other around her stomach. She didn't think anything of it as she swung her legs out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom for some Aspirin, still wondering what she should say to Cole.

One look in the mirror was frightening enough. Scowling, Cam turned on the shower handle and began stripping off her clothes. She sat down on the toilet to help guide her pants over her legs, her pregnancy making it harder than usual to balance while standing. She swallowed her pills dutifully and froze when she heard knocking on the door.

"Hey sleepyhead, breakfast is ready. So don't hop in the shower yet."

"Too late!" Cam called cheerfully back; delaying face to face confrontation was high on her list of priorities.

"I know you're not in there yet," he called back, "the water flow hasn't been interrupted." Damn him.

"Well I'm naked," she fired back crossly. She braced herself for his cheeky retort as she finally stripped off her last article of clothing. Instead the world went white and the sound washed out of it.

It was surreal, like a quick step into Seeley's flashes of PTSD. The white bathroom now glowed like sunlight did in a dark room. The mirror held her reflection in it, but her reflection was distorted…or maybe that was her face. There was a voice speaking in a loud, garbled tone, like someone on the intercom in the DC metro red line. It was unintelligible. Her own skin was a shiny beige smear in her white world and she felt herself grasping the shower curtain in one hand, and her other still clutching her underwear.

She made herself speak feeling that this was the true nightmare.

"Cole…I'm bleeding."

* * *

She didn't get dressed before she opened the door, just shrugged into a white robe she had stole from a hotel once upon a time. He was ashen, his fists still poised to smash against the wood as she opened the door and showed him the mute proof. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to be mistaken for a period…or something much worse. Cam remembered her brief flash of pain when she had sat up and shuddered as she calmly, still trance like, made her way to her dresser drawer.

This wasn't shock. Shock was pleasant, in a strange, off kilter way. It was soft, and people were soft. Their voices were garbled and far away and the world swam as if underwater, her ears clogged to protect her from the pain. Always the pain.

But this was something much worse, a hypervigilance that permeated all her senses and stripped her bare of any emotion. She wasn't repressing it; she couldn't even feel it. Cam could have counted the number of burls in her woodwork on her dresser, she felt sure, with her quick eyes and the level of detail saturating her consciousness. Instead her hands, acting of their own accord, calmly but quickly rifled through her drawers for clothes. Her consciousness couldn't care less what she wore, but her comforting and calculating hands picked out a professional outfit she so often put together, it was second nature. She simply substituted her tank top for a soft maternity top Angela had forced her to buy. Cam realized her train of thought had branched when she found herself back in her bathroom, the door locked, getting dressed, Cole already packing the children, while she dressed herself with one hand and ate eggs with the other, wondering if Angela would like a thank you note.

Her multitasking shocked her. Cam was efficient, but this hyperawareness was startling. She realized suddenly she was staring at her too close reflection as her hands applied her mascara. Her hair was straight and glossy; it wasn't greasy enough to look unwashed after only one night. She couldn't wash her hair every night anyway. The strange thing was she couldn't remember getting dressed, getting breakfast, talking to Cole or brushing her hair. Cam opted in favor for smart soles, and found herself crossing the threshold, keys, purse, and another helping of breakfast for Cole in hand while squeaking in brand new running shoes that clashed slightly with her outfit but fit her swollen feet better than the rest of her closet.

"Drive," she said calmly as she handed him his platter of bacon; he looked bewildered at her calm demeanor and her careful collection of her appearance. Cam refused to think, but rather watched, half fascinated, half wavering, through her newfound vision as the world rushed by. Trees that were merely trees hours before now scintillated in the light as bejeweled scepters, branching with infinite number of shapes, angles, planes and a symmetry that dazzled her. The white strips dividing the road now zoomed in light speed under the tires of Cole's car. They glittered with the crystals embedded in the asphalt as Cam watched. Blinking lights, traffic lights, tail lights all ran together in a blur of color than reminded Cam of a Broadway musical, the theatrics so over the top, the stage was terrifying.

Cam didn't feel like waiting for Cole at the entrance to the emergency room, so irritated was she to see it again in less than 24 hours. However, she blandly and expertly unstrapped Kitty with far more dexterity than her wholly conscious mind could have. Perhaps Kitty herself, a mere year, could sense the change, or perhaps sense the gravity of the situation, for she allowed herself to be lifted without protest. Cole said something to Cam, who didn't hear him as she was busy hoisting the diaper bag from the back seat onto her other arm.

"Their car seats," he said, right into her ear. Instead of jumping, starting as she normally would, Cam nodded and somehow disassembled a car seat that would have usually baffled her. Her newfound finesse seemed somehow tied with her hyperawareness. Things seemed so simple now; latches and buckles were deceptively easy. Her whole life seemed so simple now.

They strode into the emergency room matching effortlessly with two diaper bags, two children and two child seats swinging from their hands. Cam realized with dismay as she folded her sunglasses into her purse, she had had the foresight to pick them up off the countertop, as she usually used the ones she stowed in her own car.

"What about Michelle?" Cole asked her as she walked up to the on call nurse and informed her of her situation. The nurse politely asked her if this was her first child, her practiced eye not matching her thinly veiled skepticism as she glided over the two children between Cole and Cam. Cam calmly informed her that it was, and the on call nurse stumbled in her paperwork, having to start over in another pen. Cam found her ineptitude slightly rankling; this woman was not as prepared for this job as she should have been. Cam finally felt _something_, a trickling dismay that she wanted to yank the pad from her hands and efficiently fill out the blanks with far more ease than this bumbling fool seemed to be capable of. After all, Cam filled out dozens of lab charts a day at light speed.

Cam flashed her an empty smile, halfway to the seats before the sentence, "Please take a seat," had finished forming in the nurse's mouth. Cole sat down next to her; Cam wasn't blind, quite the opposite in fact. She could feel him watching her. She unerringly met his gaze.

"Yes?" she asked in the same polite tone. It seemed to be the wrong one, because Cole flinched as if she had dunked him into an ice bath, his skin rippling in ways that fascinated her already preoccupied mind.

"You need to call Michelle."

"Okay," Cam said in the same bland tone. She opened her phone and pressed the correct number on the speed dial. She held it to her ear before swiveling her gaze back to Cole.

"And what do I need to tell her?" Cole gave her a look that was a quarter exasperation and three quarters desperation.

"Do you want me to talk to her?" he asked gravely, right as Michelle picked up.

"Cam?" her staticky voice was tired over the line. Within seconds of cataloging the sounds in the background, Cam realized beyond a shadow of a doubt her daughter had been drinking last night.

"Michelle, I know you're hung over but-" There was an immediate squawk of protest over the line which half irked Cam. She continued her sentence; Michelle couldn't see the bigger picture. "I'm in the emergency room with Dr. Hart," Again, Cam saw Cole flinch out of her peripheral vision. "I'm bleeding."

"Oh my God." To Michelle's credit, she didn't have to ask where; that much should have been obvious by the phone call and the evident hospital visit. Cam realized Michelle knew nothing about her visit with Hank here the previous day. She wondered idly if it was the same on call nurse. Poor thing.

Without waiting for the correct salutation, Cam listed the hospital name and the time they arrived, to Cole's amazement, as she didn't consult a watch or the wall clock. She hung up and realized that her own internal clock was surprisingly accurate today. Cam cleared her throat, content to watch baby Kitty's sleepy morning eyes blink inquisitively, flashing dark blue, then black violet, then slate grey under the hologynic pools of light that were infuriatingly buzzing in the back of Cam's mind.

"I said," Cole repeated, and Cam suddenly realized her mouth was having a conversation without her, waiting for her consciousness to catch up. She briefly dwelled on how thoughtful her subconscious was before turning her souped up attention on Cole.

"I said do you want me to call anyone else?"

"I'm perfectly capable of using the phone," she informed him coolly. He made a strange face Cam couldn't place in context and so ignored.

"I think we should call your friends."

"Do you want to?" Cam asked distractedly, watching a new victim sweep through the doors, his head spurting blood in crimson fountains from a nasty jagged cut over one temple.

"I'm going to call in your lab, okay?" Cole was talking to her as she had talked to the boy who had been in the car crash. She turned unreadable eyes on him.

"Okay," she enunciated slowly and clearly. He flushed and her unmeant taunt.

He took her phone from between her deadened fingers and began scrolling through the contact list.

"Today is Saturday," she informed him. He nodded as if goading along a child.

"And?"

"It's the weekend. Their day off. They won't all be in the lab."

"So?"

"So they should have a weekend," Cam echoed, trying to convey the vital importance of having a personal life. It was something she had never had.

"This is a little more important than playing croquet," Cole said through gritted teeth. Cam wondered idly why he was so angry. She squeezed his hand because she knew that was the socially acceptable 'right' thing to do, though she couldn't understand for the life of her why.

"They don't play croquet," she informed him. He laughed and she frowned. She hadn't tried to be funny. Didn't he see this was very serious? His laugh cut off abruptly.

"I'll just call one, and then she can spread the word."

"She?"

"I thought you'd want me to call the Asian girl. What's her face. Astrid."

"Angela," Cam retorted witheringly. She knew he was trying to rankle her. She also could tell she was unnerving him. She did feel bad about that, but the hypervigilance she was carrying was so incredibly comforting she didn't want to give it up.

"I would rather call her than your ex," he informed her cheerfully. She had never felt more cheerless.

"It's not like that," she informed him scathingly.

"It's not like what?" came a new voice. Cam blinked up at the daylight. Her conversation with Cole had been wearing on her super saturated eyesight so she hadn't seen the newcomer arrive. She didn't mean for her voice to sound so relieved but she knew she had failed when her peripheries saw Cole shudder and sulk simultaneously.

"Booth," she sighed.

"Michelle called me," he said by way of answer.

"Is she here?" barked Cole.

"She said she wanted to take her own car," Booth answered him civilly, but his eyes were for Cam alone. Cam realized there was enough tension radiating off the two of them to power a small city. She remembered with a tiny electric shock how cruel Booth had been the night before. He obviously remembered as well because his gaze was hungrily tearing across her face, like a kid rushing through the climax of a Harry Potter novel.

The severe dislike emanating from Cole seemed almost palpable in the air. Cole rose and stalked away, his own phone already to his ear, and his first words to his daughters' babysitter. Cam's own phone was still clutched tightly in his other hand.

"Look," began Booth awkwardly, "about last night…" He petered off, obviously waiting for Cam to interrupt him the way she normally did. She contented herself to stare at his features, almost able to count every strand of stubble on his unshaven jawline. He had obviously been up all night and his voice rasped as if he had done much of the talking. Cam clinically wondered just how many pegs down Hank had taken him.

"Did you have a nice visit?" she asked. By the way Booth jumped in his seat, she supposed her voice wasn't completely in the right octave. Analytically she tried to correct it with her next two words: "With Hank?" It was worse; it came out sounding like a baritone. Cam didn't clear her throat but lapsed back into silence, chit chat beyond her. She realize Booth's face was nearer to hers than socially acceptable by the way she could smell the orange juice on his breath. It smelled sour and sweet and not at all like Cole's.

"Are you all right?" he asked quietly, his voice almost out of hearing range and rumbling. She didn't shake this time, or let it shake her. She simply stared straight through him, her mind elsewhere as her hand rested limply on one of her legs, too scared to touch the swell of her stomach lest it suddenly deflate. Cam almost smirked at the childish cartoon imagery. As if miscarriages suddenly deflated. She didn't smile though; nothing was funny.

She realized she hadn't answered Booth by the strange way he was hovering by her elbow before springing up. She was mildly surprised to see him approach Cole and extend his hand in a gesture of peace. Apparently her hypervigilance also came with an added bonus of intensely good hearing because she began to overhear snippets of the two men's conversation though their heads were low, and their backs turned from her.

"How long has she been like that?" That angry, biting voice was Booth's.

"So you noticed it too?" There was a brief flurry of activity at the doors that interrupted her unrepentant eavesdropping.

"Seen it in soldiers…" Seeley was talking again.

"It's not shock," agreed Cole.

"She's taking it remarkably well." Cam couldn't tell who was speaking now.

"Or incredibly poorly," reciprocated the opposite voice. She was put out to realize that both their voices were rumbling and they now sounded almost indistinguishable. Cam realized a doctor was helping her to her feet. At least that's what the white coat suggested. It wasn't her obstetrician.

"I'm Brad's mother," the woman doctor was babbling to her, squeezing the life out of Cam's lungs. She briefly wondered if the woman could squeeze the life out of her body period. She forced herself to pay attention to her speech and not the tight pretty ringlets of curly auburn hair that glistened with too much product. Cam realized the woman had blood red lipstick on her right canine tooth, but couldn't concentrate on what she was saying. Snippets wound their way into Cam's close inspection of the woman's pores, her bright green eyes, her excellent botox.

"Could have been killed! Remembered you…can't believe you stopped on the highway for him…pulled him out…his leg is set…knows your daughter…lovely girl…see you're expecting another…I can't thank you enough…would you like to go to dinner?" The woman's long string of effusions stopped abruptly and Cam realized she was supposed to answer.

"Of course," she mustered graciously, but rather woodenly yet the auburn haired woman beamed at her as if Cam had conjured Santa Claus. She spun Cam around and left her as she bustled away…if swinging perfectly clad hips in four inch stilettos could be called 'bustling.' Cam felt herself being lowered back into her chair with a strong set of arms.

"I see you've met Dr. Baker."

"She's a…" Cam started, and Cole finished for her, although she had never planned the second half of the sentence to begin with.

"Plastic surgeon."

"Oh."

"The doctor will see you now," chirruped the inept on call nurse. Cole helped her back to her feet.

"I'll watch the kids," Booth offered generously. Cam realized she should reassure his terrified face somehow and gave him a rictus of a smile over her shoulder as she walked away. His face drained of the little color it had and the swinging doors cut him off from view.

"Are you coming in too?" the nurse asked and Cam realized she was talking to Cole who was still supporting her. His answering glare was answer enough. She felt herself being laid down on the table and suddenly, with an almost audible crack that echoed the snapping of the closing door, Cam felt her preternatural calmness fall away.

She realized she was gripping Cole's hand so tightly it was slowly being wrung of blood. She glanced up at him and his entire face melted with relief at finally meeting her eyes.

"I'm scared," she whispered. "I don't want her to die."

Instead of answering, his eyes welled up with tears and he squeezed her hand back so hard she almost cried out with the pain. Instead she swallowed it down, staring back at his terrified face, realizing this was his worst fear, living it all over again, and he had _chosen_ to be there. She shuddered a sigh, his candidness more comforting than his unspoken:

"I love you."


	26. Fake It 'Til You Make It

**Nasty business, family. But there is more than one kind of family. Review with who you think was the hero. **

**

* * *

**"So what is it?" Cole asked the doctor aggressively as she finally stepped back into the room.

"Bleeding in the second trimester," she began in a warning tone that had Cam's stomach churning, "is actually not as uncommon as you think."

"What?" Cam asked blankly.

"It is not as uncommon," the doctor reiterated. She looked at Cam. "You're how old?"

"Thirty three," she whispered, her voice cracked.

"Well you aren't quite 35 or older, but in someone of your stature and build, pregnancies are harder without the added fat cell count. And you don't look to be putting on excessive weight."

"I've gained almost eighteen pounds!" exclaimed Cam.

"Yes," said her doctor drolly, "and that puts you at 133 pounds. Your starting weight before the pregnancy was only 115."

"You only weight a hundred and fifteen _pounds_?" exclaimed Cole, in an insulting rather than admiring tone. Briefly forgetting her crushing worry, Cam gave him her best withering glare over her shoulder.

"I'm only five foot three. It's not _that_ strange."

"You are very thin," the doctor frowned. "Which explains why the pregnancy might have been exacerbated. Although you've never previously had children, signs of high blood pressure run in your family. Do you smoke?"

"She doesn't!" Cole barked. Guiltily, Cam nodded a tiny bit.

"Occasionally," she admitted, not meeting Cole's gaze, "but only once in a while, in... high stress situations." The doctor nodded, taking notes.

"Had any falls recently or during your pregnancy?" Cam bit down on her lip and opted for a cautious:

"Yes." More note taking going on. Cam hung her head in shame. She _knew_ what she had told Angela was true.

"As I can't be positive if placental abruption has occurred in your mother's family history before, I could also tell you that it is not an uncommon problem to be passed down. It isn't a genetic marker in and of itself, but since many of the symptoms _are_, the resultant problem is not unusual."

"Placental abruption?" Cam asked carefully.

"Usually prefaced by a sharp stomach pain followed by vaginal bleeding." Cam was already nodding.

"That happened this morning."

"Roughly 1 in 100 women have this problem."

"You said it was common!" Cole barked.

"No," corrected the obstetrician with a half irked smile, "I said it's not as uncommon as you might believe. Dr. Hart, Dr. Saroyan, your titles precede you. You have both gone to medical school, is that correct?" She waited for their mute nods. "So you know statistics better than most. I have seen and treated this many times in my practice. I have many patients. The numbers add up."

"Well how do we fix it?" Cole asked aggressively. Cam made a slashing motion with one of her hands to get him to back down.

"Well you don't," the doctor smiled gently. "It simply means that Dr. Saroyan will need to have a C-section. There is no question in my mind of trying to force the baby through torn placenta; it may drown or be affected during childbirth. That is not always the case and if you would like to try to have a natural birth, I would understand, but the risks are much higher."

"That's okay," Cam breathed, her head suddenly floating away in ecstatic relief and causing her big mouth to talk for her, "I was never really looking forward to that level of pain anyways."

There was a moment of tense laughter.

"And I recommend bed rest. I won't keep you here in the hospital because you are very lucky. The ultrasound shows the tear to be very minor. The baby is not having an abnormal heartbeat. This is a very mild case, but be advised if you don't take bed rest seriously – I'm not saying you can't walk around – you could be putting your daughter at risk."

Cam nodded soberly but a thought struck her.

"What about work?" The doctor frowned.

"I'd really prefer if you didn't."

"I promise," Cam swore fervently, "I mostly sit all day anyway. Does it matter where I do it?"

"If you have someone else drive you."

"What?" Cam gasped in outrage at the loss of her autonomy. Her control issues were being tested to their limits, and those were very short.

"Driving is highly stressful and so many things can go wrong. I will allow you to work on three stipulations."

"Name them," rumbled Cole, crossing his arms. Cam knew it was more to caution her to stop being so ornery than in defense.

"One is that _if_ she goes to work, she _must _be seated all day except in cases to use the bathroom or go home. I'm sure you have wheeling chairs."

"But-" Cam tried to butt in, trying to explain how ridiculous she was going to feel.

"Two," the doctor continued steamrolling her protests. "Not only will you take the antibodies I'm prescribing for you without fail, you will eat 500 calories more per day than you usually would. Fattier substances, not lean cuisine and celery."

"I-" Cam protested.

"Three," the doctor frowned at her. "If you feel stressed at any time, you will immediately stop what you are doing and listen to one song in a dark room."

"What?" Cam screeched. "My entire job is about _murder_."

"This is your child's _life," _stressed the doctor. "Are there more important things in yours? Because if there are, you need to rearrange them right now."

"Done," Cole declared, shaking it as if sealing a deal. "I'll personally supervise."

"You don't work with me!" Cam berated him.

"I'll get Booth to watch you."

"Now you're on a first name basis?" she griped. The doctor, smiling slightly, left them alone. The silence that followed her was louder than the fourth of July.

"Cole, I-"

"I know," and his smugness made her smile. His own voice was hesitant. "And I…acted…"

"I know," she said dryly, and he laughed sheepishly. "But it's okay," she told him honestly. "I think sometimes I need to hear it."

"Damn straight doll," he winked roguishly at her, his coyote grin flitting about his lips with such avid _relief_, Cam realized that he was close to crying. His eyes were overbright and his hand clenched hers too tightly even still.

She sat up slowly and looked at him.

"I am so, so sorry," she said in a low voice, "that you had to do this again." He swallowed and when he spoke his Boston brogue was thick and his voice strangely high.

"Don't you _ever_ scare me like that again Camille."

"Don't call me Camille," her mouth said absently but her eyes were warm. He choked a laugh, and managed to blink a tear away before it could fall.

"I mean it. This whole past night…you scared me. Your nightmare-" Cam shuddered, having forgotten. "Your bleeding…but mostly your voice."

"What?" Of all the things she had thought he would put on this list, her voice wasn't one of them; she felt incredibly self-conscious.

"The voice when you spoke to me on the way here…I…I was losing you. I could tell. You were somewhere else…someone else." He wiped his face, finally tearing his grip from hers. "Does that make any sense?" he mumbled into his muffled hands. He dropped them to stare at her face, devouring it as if he had been blind but granted the power of sight for a brief window of time.

"Yes," Cam said softly, remembering how her father had changed overnight with Tony's illness. He hadn't slid into it as Tony's strength had lowly eroded, but a switch had flipped, broken, never to be flipped back. His voice had been strange. She could hardly even recall what it used to sound like without the help of home videos.

"Should we go out there?" he ventured. It was Cam's turn to put a mortified hand to her face as she swung her legs over the edge of the examining table.

"Oh God…they're probably all out there…waiting. Again." She mulishly nipped at a finger as it fell away from her face, angry. She lashed about to glare at him. "_This_ is why I told you not to call them. This is so ridiculous! They probably think – they think – God, Cole _why_?"

"You should be grateful they're here," he said softly, grasping her shoulder. She shrugged out from beneath it irritably. He continued. "They love you. You're their family, they told me themselves. They want to be here for you and they aren't going to be mad like you're afraid."

"I'm not afraid," she snapped.

"They'll be _glad_," Cole stressed, "that it was only a minor problem. I mean, not so minor. You are very lucky."

"I know," Cam said ungraciously. She had been about to childishly ask in what way she was lucky before she realized…all of them. She had incredible friends; so she wasn't the center of their focus…that was hard. But she had craftily constructed it that way. If she had been the center they wouldn't have liked her.

"You seem to think you get a minimum number of passes," Cole observed as he held the door for her.

"Hmm?" Cam asked thoughtfully. Her mind came flooding back and she frowned at him. "What?"

"That you only get so many 'false alarms' and 'serious consequences' before your friends get fed up with you, like the little boy who cried wolf." He suddenly spun her in the corridor, feet from the swinging doors. He put both his arms over her forearms like manacles, rooting her in place. She was once again desperately aware of the futility of trying to get away.

"This wasn't a false alarm," he said in his deepest, most shuddery voice. Cam swallowed hard. How did he pluck out what she most feared? It only helped to confirm that she was absolutely transparent and not a single goddamn person was paying attention. She cast her eyes to the ground.

"Angel, family is about caring for each other."

"I know that," she snapped defensively. He had no idea what she put up with from Felicia.

"No," Cole corrected sharply, enunciating his words with a shake. "Family cares about you when you're sick, when you're healthy, when you're crying, when you're laughing. They like you when you look like a million bucks and laugh at you when you spill mayonnaise down your front. Family is there when you're at your worst…when you're greasy and unshowered, wearing sweats and stained, eating a burrito and farting on the couch. _That's_ family. And out through those double doors? Your family is waiting. So don't put so much pressure on yourself that you only get a limited number of passes to be all 'weak' as you put it. Ok?"

"I never put it that way," was her only churlish, but still faint response. She felt strange as she walked through the doors and saw all of her friends waiting. And dear God Daisy was there with Sweets, the latter looking adorably young in a polo and plaid shorts.

Angela was holding Andie expertly and Brennan – unlikely as it was – was cradling Kitty, seemingly trying to teach her an organic chemistry lesson as she demonstrated with inflated latex gloves the properties of electrons rotating about Kitty's head.

But what really snagged Cam's attention were the people everyone was _not_ looking at.

Jared sat, arms crossed next to a weeping Felicia. Other members of the ER were glancing over, scandalized at her family's seeming unconcern with Felicia's theatrics.

"Felicia." Cam could have imagined the collective indrawn breath from her family as Felicia, sobbing, rushed into her, her arms outstretched. Cam felt nauseated with hate. She tried to rein it in. _Don't make a scene_, her mother's voice chided her coldly. _Use your words._

Felicia was crushing her as she rocked back and forth; Cam could feel her hot tears dripping coldly down the back of her shirt as Felicia's gaping mouth hit Cam's skin over and over. Cam didn't push her away, but she didn't hug her back either. She let her hands hang limply at her sides, forcefully staring at the sky. Why was this so hard for her? She wouldn't waste a _second_ reaming someone for hurting any of her friends, compromising her work place, or snapping a rookie cop in line. Yet when it came to herself…she was as helpless as a limp noodle, passively letting Felicia walk all over her.

But Felicia was family; family tended to abuse one another like rugs.

"I am _so_ sorry," Felicia whimpered. Cam's hands itched to slap her. She refused to ball them into fists to avoid the temptation. Instead she stretched them out, splaying her fingers briefly before letting them fall back to her sides. She opened her mouth automatically to either apologize to Felicia or to console her. She snapped it shut. She wasn't about to ream Felicia in front of her friends – family – but she wasn't going to defend her either. Felicia's eyes widened in panic upon reading the resoluteness in Cam's hard mouth.

"Tell her," rasped Jared. He looked haggard; Cam gave him a wan smile and he gave her a tired salute. She struggled to fight tears. That was Jared's loser salute. It was a remnant of Seeley and Jared's childhood that whoever lost the game had to salute the new "commander" and run errands. It had led to a lot of competition, but Cam thrived on competition. She ached, for a moment, for those carefree days in the carefully immaculate but worn house of the Booth family and for her rookie days as a cop when she bummed cigarettes with a smile from gruff old men who couldn't resist. But she knew she was gilding the memories with aching sweetness when in reality she had often been cold in her apartment alone, and shivered as she watched someone get killed for the first time. Those were the days when she would cry in patrol cars when her partner wasn't there yet, desperate for comfort and too proud to ask.

Jared had given her the loser's salute; it was she who was the loser. Cam stiffened every muscle in her body, a tendency left over from medical school. They always said to fake it 'til you make it. That meant standing stiffly, joints locked in place when someone felt like falling over. Cam felt like that now in face of Felicia's perpetual toddlerhood.

"I spent all the money," blurted Felicia. The room was dead silent. Andie began to fuss, and Cole strode from Cam's side to retrieve her from Angela. Unfairly, in Cam's tiny back of the mind opinion, Kitty looked perfectly happy with Brennan's silent teachings about atoms.

"What?" Cam asked numbly. Her arms felt heavy at her sides. She wondered if the front of her shirt was wrinkled. Why was no one speaking? Did no one want to come to her defense? She felt deficient.

Booth noticed.

"On what?" he demanded.

"Condos," wailed Felicia.

"_What_?" barked Booth in her favorite soldier snap.

"This man," blubbered Felicia. She was standing alone now, hugging herself as if she would never let go; Cam recognized that pose as one she sometimes adopted. She hated that Felicia had copied that too. "This man told me he was buying rich condos and I could live in one if I wanted but I had to pay him. And sleep with him. So I did." She glared defiantly as if daring someone to question her. No one made a sound.

"And then he just disappeared. I tried calling him…I just…I just needed the money for that and for a few other things like paying off my old apartment and borrowing from friends…" her clouded face suddenly cleared. "And suddenly everyone was nice to me again. People who had been yelling at me and not speaking to me were suddenly having me over for dinner. I was suddenly responsible."

"Responsible?" laughed Michelle witheringly, arms crossed, legs spread and looking like a mythical fury.

"I'm sorry baby," whimpered Felicia.

"Shut _up!_" Michelle snapped, covering her ears. "Cam won't yell at you because you're her family. But you're not _my_ family! God I _hate_ you! How could you do this to me? To her?" Michelle gestured at Cam.

"Come on," wheedled Felicia. "It's not so bad…I'm sure there's more where that came from." She laughed a little. "I mean, come on Camille. You're dating a doctor." She waved at Cole. The temperature in the room became cool. Felicia seemed blithely unaware. As usual.

"And you went to medical school. If you had any part of a working brain you'd be something beneficial and smart that could make lots of money, like a plastic surgeon."

Cam still said nothing, but the room was becoming chillier by the second. Felicia, in retrograde, seemed to be warming to the topic that this was not only Cam's fault for being irresponsible with her career choice, but that the money wasn't important because as far as Felicia was concerned, there was more where that came from.

"And I don't know anything about your friends," Felicia waved a hand over them all, encompassing. Cam was suddenly very glad she had never been able to squeak a word in edgewise around Felicia; she didn't have any harmful ammunition to throw. "But they look all right. I mean, Dr. Brennan writes books and what not – you could get a loan from her." For the first time in Cam's living memory, Brennan didn't open her mouth to correct someone.

"And as for me, I'll get you back but honestly Camille, you are really throwing your career and talent away. I mean, look at this." She waved at Cam's stomach. "You're drinking. Smoking. Pregnant. And you're calling _me_ irresponsible."

There was a deafening silence. It was downright below freezing. Felicia finally seemed to notice the closed off faces, and the half horrified, half fascinated looks she was receiving. She crossed her arms over herself defiantly.

"Get out," said a quiet voice, and Cam looked around, unsure of who had spoken. It was Jared.

"Get out," he repeated, looming to his feet and coming between her and Felicia. The rest of her lab watched silently, like spectators at a polite round of golf.

Felicia, in contrast to the tearful mess she had been minutes before, now stood solidly, on fire with her own special brand of self righteousness and her own delusions the entire world was wrong. It was a quality she had honed to perfection.

"You're not her _brother_," spat Felicia derisively at Jared. She swatted his hand away. "To think what I ever saw in you." She glared back at Cam. "You think these people are your family?" Her laugh was colder than the frosty stares she was garnering from half the room. She snidely lashed back around to face Cam, after gesturing wildly. "They aren't your family. Your family is dead. Your mother is _dead_. Your brother is dead. And if you insist on tattling to Daddy and making a big deal about this, your sister will be dead to you too." She crossed her arms. Cam felt like she couldn't breathe, much less speak. Felicia grinned cruelly, her smile feral, full of sharp, white teeth. "Is that what you want? You want to be alone again? You want to drive everyone away? You've been left motherless. Brotherless. Are you going to be sisterless too?" she taunted.

"She won't be," said a strong, clear voice. And Cam looked gratefully at Angela before her eyes popped wide when she realized it had been Brennan who had spoken, gracefully striding to Cam's side, baby on hip. She looked grim yet somehow dignified.

"And she's not brotherless," said another. Booth flanked her other side. Out of the corner of her eye, Cam saw Brennan tentatively extend her fingers. Booth obligingly grasped her hand.

"She's not alone," Sweets agreed.

"We're her family," argued Michelle, sticking up her chin. Felicia backed away, turning in the circle that had suddenly surrounded her, an animal seeking its way out. Cam, feeling buoyed by her friends – her family – and their support, felt only pity for Felicia. She watched her sadly, and motioned for Hodgins to step aside so she could dart away. Felicia lunged for the spot but then turned with a liquid languor that had Cam's spine tingling with dread.

"Your new brothers, huh?" smiled Felicia, her smile cruel again. Cam swallowed, wondering when it had become that way. Her sister was her sister; she loved her nonetheless for her crimes and her infuriating personality. Felicia actually _strutted_ forward. "These white people?" She smirked at Sweets; he flushed dully but stood erect. To her credit, Daisy Wick had not murmured a sound.

"Do you want to know what happened to your real brother?" asked Felicia softly; her words were crystal clear, shattering like ice on the frozen tundra. "All those letters," she whispered, her voice venomous with jealousy and…regret? Cam's blood ran cold when she realized what Felicia meant. "All the letters he ever sent you while you were growing up. I managed to catch them all. At least I thought I did. Oh, Tony wrote me too. Just a little, a few and far between. He wasn't as candid in mine. As raw. As honest. By the time I got that one in the mail – the post office knows to direct them to me by now – I was so goddamn sick of him. Of you. Of you two in your little 'club.' You were so close, and he was so open with you. So touching. I read all of the letters," Felicia hissed quietly, icily. Her voice was louder than the babies' breathing. "Every word. Every penned regret, every goodbye and bout of self pity." Cam finally found the words to speak.

"What did you do with them?" she asked desperately. But in her heart, she already knew the sinking, burning answer.

"I burned them," Felicia smiled maliciously. "Every one. Into ash. And I gave you the last one because…well…because you deserved to know. And to feel ashamed. And to feel the way you feel. Your life is too easy Camille."

"You think my life is easy?" whispered Cam. All the sleepless nights. The rape cases. The dead bodies in the basements. The overwhelming stench. The retching and regret. The death without drains. It had been hell getting where she was. And what had Felicia been doing? Nothing. Maybe that's what hurt Felicia's bitter heart most.

"I burned them all," Felicia responded and turned around, and walked confidently out.

Brennan chose that moment to drop the baby.


	27. And She Carries The Team

**Pobrecitas! I know it's been a thousand years since I've updated (hopefully my other story keeps you guys awake?) Things got crazy. So as recompense, here's an extra long, extra sad chapter. It's funny because what was supposed to be Cole interaction became Booth interaction. Go figure and it's sweeter this way with the original characters. As always, your little notes of commentary are awesome and taken seriously.**

* * *

Cole swooped a crying Kitty off the floor while Brennan apologized profusely. Booth gently drew her away by the elbow to both chastise and comfort her in private.

"Cam," Hodgins said softly, seeing her shocked face. "Do you want to go home?"

"No," she said faintly.

"Do you want something to eat?" Sweets added.

"Something to drink?" Angela added, her words joking but her face sober.

"I want to go to the lab," Cam said, surprising even herself. Her gaze focused a little more. "Michelle, please go to school."

"But-" protested Michelle.

"I'm serious," Cam said. She looked down. "I'm fine. Please go." The lie had never sounded so false to her ears.

"We can all go back to the lab," agreed Booth.

"I'll drive you," Cole offered. "I have to drop the girls off back home anyway. You sure you don't want to change?"

"No," Cam said dully. "I'm fine." She knew, without checking her reflection, her hyperawareness had dressed her well.

"It will get better," Brennan offered awkwardly. Booth shook his head in exasperation and shoved her behind him. Cam nodded not at all resolutely.

"It'll all work out in the end," she echoed dutifully, hollowly. In her minds eye, she saw Tony's grave, still fresh with dirt the way it had looked on the day they buried him. _I no longer believe in miracles_, she had whispered to herself, twelve years old and disillusioned. Her entire life had been about cold reality, and fixing things for herself. When had she slipped back into being a dreamer? When she started sleeping with Seeley? When the lab had rescued Brennan and Hodgins from an impossible grave? When she had adopted Michelle?

Whenever it was, her dreams had taken her by surprise.

"Everything happens for a reason," Angela chimed. _Does it?_ Cam wanted to ask, as she felt herself being shepherded to the parking lot. Her feet were strangely heavy. She tripped twice or three times over the cracks in the concrete, not noticing who grabbed her elbow. But inside she was shivery and awake, hyperaware but unable to control it. It seemed to be nibbling at the nerves in her forearms because they were shaking. It curled in her intestines as she felt light headed and naseuous. It shuddered beneath her leaden toes as she wondered over, and over, _what reasons? Which reasons? I no longer believe in miracles. I no longer believe in miracles. I no longer believe in miracles. _

If she was honest with herself, she knew she didn't believe everything happened for a reason. As humans, she knew that the species liked to pull reason out of chaos, justify senseless hate with something bigger, a greater scheme.

_All the senseless hate._

_There is no greater scheme_, she realized as she buckled herself in.

_I no longer believe in miracles._

* * *

"Cam?" Sweets called again. "Cam! Dr. Saroyan! CAM!" He was standing right next to her as she mindlessly buckled her seat belt. Her face was terrifyingly blank, her eyes even more so; she looked like men did before they threw themselves off of buildings. Both professionally and personally, Sweets felt obligated to help. This was serious. Cam could try to play it off like it wasn't, but she was scaring him. She was scaring everybody.

"What's wrong with her?" came an anxious, deep voice. Sweets spun around expecting Booth and therefore was surprised to come face to face with Cam's new lover Dr. what's his face. Sweets wasn't sure what to think of him. The man had obviously faced loss, but he was too damnably proud to share. Come to think of it, Cam had a very predictable taste in men.

"She's in shock," Sweets said calmly; at least he hoped he said it calmly.

"No duh," Dr. Hart snorted sadistically. "I'm a doctor, got that part."

"No _I'll _take care of her," came a shout. Booth and Angela were fighting pettily, striding into sight.

"I'm going to work," Brennan informed Booth shortly as she tagged along behind. Booth threw up his hands in frustration.

"Fine."

"Fine," Brennan said coolly. "Ange? Are you coming?"

"No," Angela said snappishly. "How can you just pretend today is no different?"

Brennan stared at her in bewilderment. "Because it's not. All the days are the same, the circumstances are what changes them."

"Well the circumstances are a little extreme today," Angela sniped waspishly.

"Hodgins is willing to work."

"Seriously Jack?" Angela seethed. Hodgins walked up but immediately backpedaled.

"Honestly Ange, there's nothing we can do."

"And I'm sure Cam would appreciate if we didn't make a bigger deal out of this than it is," Brennan pointed out logically. Cole bet that Cam could have kissed that woman for saying that…if she was paying attention. A quick check informed him that she was not.

"A bigger deal?" yelped Booth. "A _bigger _deal? You think there's a _bigger_ deal? Dear God, you people are _impossible_!"

"We're all people Booth," Brennan sniffed.

"Debatable," he snapped.

"Are you really on her side?" Angela fired at her husband. Hodgins shrugged.

"I kind of agree. Cam will be in her office."

"Then that's where I need to be."

"So do I," warned Booth.

"I don't think Dr. Hart is staying," Brennan shrugged. "He has a job."

"Well Cam's our boss," Angela said mulishly, "I think she'd appreciate the situation."

"The Jeffersonian is your boss," Brennan corrected. "Cam is just who they've chosen to employ."

"Just go," said Angela disgustedly. "There's no working with you."

"Booth?" Brennan's voice was hesitant and hurt. "Do you still want to have lunch?"

"This sort of takes precedent Bones," he snapped. Sweets wanted to groan. This was _exactly_ the sort of friction that could tear the lab apart. Hodgins and Brennan both slammed their car doors getting in. Booth and Angela strode over to check on her. Grim glances at Cam's forward facing inattention made them both grimace.

"This is so weird," Angela sighed.

"Cam sharing?" Booth laughed. His laugh was sour and shaky in Sweets' ears. "Tell me about it."

"I meant us fighting," frowned Angela. "We're usually so together on stuff like this, when it comes to the family."

"Isn't that what she does?" interrupted Cole, who hadn't spoken for quite some time. "She polices you?"

"No!" barked Booth.

"Police is a strong term," objected Angela. Sweets' eyebrows furrowed.

"Yes," he said slowly. He checked to make sure the suv door was closed. It wasn't, but Cam seemed unaware of anything but the color of her nails. There wasn't even polish on them. "She does. She makes sure everyone works together as a team. She's like…the…"

"Like the lube," Cole beamed. His face looked both charming and arrogant to Sweets' opinion. Ego tripper. He wanted to scoff but knew his reaction was because he personally liked Dr. Saroyan very much and wondered what she saw in him.

"_Lube?"_ Angela stressed skeptically.

"Sure," shrugged Cole, winking, "some people are the glue, and some the lube. Some people bind the group and some…lubricate interaction. Ease it along. Get rid of the friction."

Even Booth laughed.

"Interesting," said Sweets, observing Dr. Hart for another once over. Cole gave him a withering glance.

"Let's get back to the lab," Booth clapped, ruining the mano a mano moment.

"Steer safely," Sweets told Dr. Hart severely. The man wasn't as dumb as his athletic physique alluded. He didn't miss the double entendre. He shrugged as if rippling his shoulder blades would shake something off of his mind.

"I will."

* * *

Cam realized she had been sitting in the front seat of the parked car for minutes. Cole had already gotten out to go ahead to do something or another. She felt very strange. _I feel like I'm coked out of my mind_, she thought dreamily as she found herself staring at the clock. It glowed pretty colors. The pattern of the concrete wall was interesting. She stared for a while at it. Her feet hurt.

She realized she was still sitting there. She felt super charged inside, but her real body was a corpse. She finally scrabbled her numb fingers against the door handle. She realized her skin was scraping slightly; she was ripping the backs of her knuckles open as she thumbed the door handles. Instead of feeling panicked that she couldn't get out, Cam only felt tired. She resumed sitting, letting her head loll back and closed her eyes again. She stared at the concrete patterns. She decided she should probably move and get in the lab.

The door opened on the first click this time as she swayed on her feet, stumbling into the side of the car. She resolutely swung her purse onto her shoulder. When did her bag get so heavy? She staggered under the weight. She began to walk slowly, dreamily, towards the stairs to the lab. _Why do I even need all of this stuff?_ She wondered as she weaved in a sort of zig zag, the concrete chalked with bright nice lines.

There was a hush as she walked in; her usual power walk was a slow drag as Cam finally resumed her seat in her office. Her friends immediately flocked to her side.

"Can I get you anything?" Angela asked anxiously.

"I can take care of your case files," Hodgins offered.

"Do you want me to sit with you?" asked Sweets.

"I just want to be alone," she whispered hoarsely. She just wanted them all to _leave_. She wasn't at 100%. Her shield was bubbly. Her soul was shaky. They couldn't _be_ there. She wasn't sure what she would say. She was so desperately lonely, and she wasn't even alone.

"We will be right outside," Angela assured her.

"Okay," whispered Cam. She idly wondered why Sweets looked like he was so very constipated. They were all staring at her as if afraid she would burst, and yet hoping she would.

She realized her bizarre silence was scaring them. They had expected her to cry.

"I'm not going to cry," she assured them, as if they had all been having the same conversation.

"Why not?" Hodgins asked bluntly.

"You _should_," Sweets reprimanded. His face flushed as he leaned in, gesticulating wildly. "Crying is a sense of catharsis. Instead of holding it all in and making your brain turn to jelly you get to let some of it out."

"But then you might get hurt," Cam said stupidly. She wanted to curse her loose tongue. Angela's face crumpled in sympathy. Hodgins' blue eyes grew bluer.

"We can take it," Sweets said firmly. Cam wavered, literally and mentally before she collapsed into her swivel chair and shrugged.

"I'm not a crier," she sighed. She turned her chair away from them, feeling shaky still. Her vision was strange; it kept zooming out of macro/micro focus. She could see really close up until the pixels on the screen of her computer blurred in rainbows. Then she realized she was a giant as her shadow loomed over the cup holding her pencils. She finally set her two ton bag onto the desk in front of her, fascinated as the corners of the leather folded in on themselves.

"What you're doing is unhealthy." Sweets' voice was flinty. "Bottling causes severe repercussions physically." Usually Cam would have laughed, brushing it off. But she was living proof with her shaking, cold fingers and her fatigued, overwrought limbs. Her heart was beating too fast; it was causing the rushing sound in her ears. She wanted them to leave.

"We just want to help," begged Angela, near tears that were ready to spill into her perfectly curled dark hair.

"I just want to take a nap," Cam sighed. "It'll all be better then."

"Okay," Angela said quietly, stroking her hair like she was a child. Cam closed her eyes and leaned into the touch before, with a strength she didn't know she had, pulled herself away and opened her eyes, looking up with a slight smile on chapped lips.

"Are you sure you don't want anything?" Hodgins was an eager puppy, reminiscent of the King of the Lab days. "Coffee? Water?"

"Water would be okay," she rasped softly, her lips cracking. Hodgins was away, sprinting down the corridor before she could finish.

A cell phone rang and Sweets exasperatedly looked down at it, answered, listened, and hung up. He stared unflinchingly at her. Cam had to wonder how this kid knew so much. He was just a kid.

"I have to go, but I'm coming back in an hour okay?" He nodded as if she had answered him. "One. Hour."

After Hodgins had slopped half the coffee cup full of ice water down his lab coat sleeve and left, Cam was finally alone. She forced herself to stand, using the table as leverage against her pregnancy. She sighed and felt buzzy again. She sank back down to the floor and rummaged through a random drawer. She knew what she was looking for before her searching fingers found it.

She pulled out a couple sheets of paper; she had written them years ago, at a symposium. The speaker had stared hard at the audience and asked them what they had learned in the last few years of their lives. Cam had graduated medical school only a few months before. Instead of journaling like her colleagues, she had boiled down her thoughts into five different pages, illustrated with her crude ability to sketch rudimentary stick figures.

She read through them slowly, her head spinning, her lungs full. Sweets was right, she realized. She felt full. Both in the way as a pitcher is too full of water and in the way a steam chamber in a volcano was pressurizing. She knew she needed release, but crying seemed like summoning so much energy. She was far away from it now.

She let the pages flutter like large confetti to the coffee table as she reached back into the drawer and drew out a prescription bottle. Sleeping pills. For one, wild and insane moment, Cam almost shook the whole bottle into her hand. She then flashed forward. _Her, dead on the floor, surrounded by one line confessions. Booth, standing over her as she broke that last piece from his sanity. _Cam shook herself as she shook the bottle to carefully measure out one dose. She couldn't do that to him. To anyone.

She swallowed them with the last sip of the water Hodgins had brought. There wasn't quite enough and so she had to swallow the sickly paste it smeared down the back of her esophagus as well. She carefully stacked the papers together, folded them back up and put the empty coffee mug on top. They looked unassuming and unimportant; how she felt.

She staggered up from her sitting position on the floor to drop to the couch only a few feet away. She lay down blissfully, feeling the drugs dampening her ever present need to let out those screams that were swirling inside her. The anger, the _hate_ at what Felicia had done. And not to Michelle.

She put a hand under her face and pretended it was someone holding her.

* * *

"Cam?" Angela knocked softly on the doorframe. There was no answer. Angela crept in a little more, her ballet flats scraping the cement floor softly. The scrapes turned into cushioned little pads as she tiptoed onto Cam's rug. Cam lay on the couch fast asleep on her side, one hand tucked childishly and adorably under her cheek, the other around her pregnant waist.

Angela sighed as she stared down at her. So Cam had been telling the truth. _For once_, her mind snidely remarked. Angela brushed at the air as if it had been the source of her thought. She stooped when she saw something orange on the floor. She bent down to retrieve it but lost her balance halfway there. She overcompensated and with an ungraceful kerfuffle, ended up in a pile on the ground, butt first. She glanced guiltily at her sleeping comrade before her fingers finally brought their prize back up to her face for inspection. Angela had known in her mind exactly what she was reaching for long before her inglorious tumble.

She hadn't expected them to be sleeping pills.

She quickly snatched up the coffee mug to check for dissolved medicine, heart racing. Angela wasn't sure if she was being paranoid or just cautious but the mug was clean, if dry; Cam had obviously been asleep for a while.

Slender waving fronds from the corner of her eye reminded Angela viscerally of the stems of flowers in a field, one she hoped to show Hodgins one day back home in Texas, regardless of how she usually laughed it off. She turned but sighed when she realized they were just folded papers unfurling as if stretching from a long slumber. They opened up as if blooming and in a small draft from Angela tossing her hair, one gracefully fluttered to the floor.

Unthinkingly, Angela swept it up and frowned. The note was bright purple, as if written in Crayola marker. There was only one line and a few crude stick drawings. But the drawings weren't…bad. In fact, their positions and simplicity were rather good, and left the piece achingly lonely. Angela noticed that Cam's angle and ideas for pictures were innovative rather than the straight on shots most people took. She shook her head, the fraction of a second of her artistic eye passing uneventfully as she read the words. Her lips quivered as she tried not to purse them in pity. She swallowed instead.

She snatched up the pages and flicked through them one by one. The first one simply said, _Even though you always feel alone, you are never _actually _alone. _The stick figure was drawn from above, crossing its arms, the shadow of the person a cross. Angela realized Cam was religious. She had forgotten that.

The second was simpler, even, than the first. It was simply bold purple lines slashing across the page with the words: _It's never as bad as you torture yourself with. _Angela had to wonder what she meant. Did she mean little things, like giving a speech? Or major events, like knowing her brother was going to die? Angela realized she was already crying. She put it off to her pregnancy hormones.

The third page was of five figures holding hands in a circle, their arms thin and weak but the blurs that were meant to be their clasped hands were strong and sure. The caption was _Don't __ever__ let go._ Angela put a hand over her mouth as she choked back a sob as she realized that this must have been Cam's family. Now it probably represented the lab. There was always one recurring stick figure, and it had a ponytail like the one Cam always wore before she had cut her hair.

The fourth page was already shivering in Angela's vision as she clutched it tightly before her. It was the longest with text. _You have sound proofed your mind from your own thoughts…but also from the thoughts of others_. Beneath the words, the stick figure girl stood in a box while a boy with spiky hair that looked suspiciously like Booth's pounded to get in. Angela put her cheek on one bent knee as her lips curled as she cried a little harder. Poor, poor Cam. The things this woman had dealt with…and she hadn't said a word.

The last page though, was the one she had initially snatched up, and it was the saddest of all. Angela didn't have to be an artist to know the crude angles formed a sideways coffin and two three legged stands stood on either side. One had curls in a circle – a flower wreath, and the other had a simple rectangle inside a larger rectangle. Below that, there were the words _In Memory_. The "picture" was blank. The words scrawling through the coffin and beyond to the empty pit beside it read: _You are so lucky he loved you._

Angela lay down on the floor, mimicking Cam's position, and cried.

* * *

Booth heard the sobs and dashed in, both worried and relieved Cam's impregnable emotional fortress had finally sprung a leak. He was very surprised to see it was Angela, lying prostrate on the floor, who was crying, her hand cupping her cheek to catch the tears like a ladle.

Booth's soldier clip didn't miss a step but he bolted into the room and almost skidded to his knees as he knelt beside her. He gathered her up into his arms like he would have Cam or Bones, and he held her face to his shoulder. Her arms snaked up around under his shoulders in a vise like grip and Booth remembered forcibly when Rebecca's pregnant belly was pushing into his stomach the same way. He wondered what his kids with Hannah would have looked like. His mind wouldn't let him think of the more realistic but also more fantastical possibility.

"Hey, hey, hey," he murmured or growled; he wasn't sure which one his throat was capable of. "I got you. I got you. It's going to be all right. It'll be okay."

"It's Cam," sobbed Angela, and Booth froze rigidly, flipping his head around so fast Angela whimpered as his arms tightened painfully with the strain. Cam slumbered on, her breath heavy, not quite snoring.

"Did she…"

"No," Angela hastened, voice and head still cloudy with sobs. "But oh, _God_ Booth. You don't know – maybe you do – but she…she…she's just so _quiet_."

"I know," Booth said grimly, his grip tightening the littlest bit but still hugging his friend to him. Angela dissolved onto his shoulder. Booth squinted at the ground. Something purple had caught his eye. He grimly read the one line confessions that were littered across the floor with a practiced eye though some were upside down. His reaction was less visceral than Angela's, but no less powerful.

"Hodgins," he called, as he saw a shadow approaching. His ears, rather than his eyes, told him he had caught the right person.

Hodgins rounded the corner and his eyes grew silver with worry as he immediately jogged in, bewildered and confused and not half a ocean's worth of jealousy clouding his face.

"Hey, hey what's up here?" He cast a quick look at the sleeping Cam and lowered his voice to a whisper. Booth could have told him he needn't have bothered. He knew what kind of sleeping pills were on the table; he used to take the same ones.

"Will you take her?" Booth asked, his arms straining as he forcibly lifted Angela off the ground from her sitting position as if she were an infant. Hodgins reverently took his wife under the arms and backed her carefully away. She immediately turned in on his grip and buried her face in his neck, still weeping.

"I'll watch her," Booth assured him. He sat down on the coffee table, his face only feet from his best friend. She slumbered peacefully, slightly drooling. She didn't look pretty now. She looked strained and ill, tired and confused, and so very innocent as she snuggled her cheekbone into the fleshy pads of her palm.

He leaned forward, his forearms on his jeans as he stared closely at her, trying to pick up any clues about what went on in that head. He used to be so good at reading her; she had gone and become a cop on him. She knew all the tricks. It used to be part of the good-natured competition, the lying. Now he realized she had pulled the greatest trick for years: letting him think he was winning.

"What's going on in there?" he murmured softly as he pushed hair back away from her face.

* * *

At the moment, Cam was actually having a pleasant dream. To her left stood Felicia. She was dressed for Easter. Cam wasn't sure how she knew that, but she knew it nonetheless. It was a pretty pastel pink dress Cam remembered Felicia had worn when she was fifteen. It had been a tad too old for her, but Felicia had stubbornly worn it regardless. Now, in the dream, she looked beautiful, as if she had grown into it, never taking it off after all these years. Her hair was sleek and straight, and her face bare of its usually flashy makeup. She was dressed conservatively, and she smoothed the dress over her hips as she beamed, the sun warm on her face.

"I love you," she smiled and Cam hugged her, feeling her own Easter Sunday dress rustle up against her sister's. They were standing on the back porch of their childhood home. The dogs were running in the thick green grass. There was a trampoline and climbing ivy against the back wooden fence. The house was to their right, as was the rocking bench and the back door.

"It's a beautiful day," Cam agreed. Felicia beamed prettily at her. At the moment, Felicia looked quite a lot like Michelle, and Cam was proud of her.

"It really is, isn't it?" he asked rhetorically. Cam looked to her right, away from Felicia. In front of the rocking bench and the brick house with its big windows, Tony stood, dressed in a beautiful Armani suit. It was black with red pinstripes and he looked very handsome. Cam's eyebrows went up at the quality. It was nothing they could have afforded. But Tony looked…different. She realized dimly it was because he was old. Older than she was, how it was meant to be.

A woman about her own age came out of the house. She was a gorgeous woman, Native American, with long black hair that Cam envied with its natural straightness. She was in sky blue and threaded her arm through Tony's. Cam knew in her dream they were married.

"Are we going to get in the car sweetheart?" she asked him, fluttering mile long lashes.

"Jade, I told you, Mom wants to take a picture." She shrugged and pretended to pout. A little boy hung on the handle of the back door, rolling his eyes.

"Daaa-aaad," he moaned. He had black hair too. He was in a tiny little suit with a bright red tie.

"Get in close you three," sang their mother, standing out by the tree next to the trampoline. The leaves were predictably all over the smooth black surface. It used to drive Cam crazy as a kid. There was some brief clicking and Marie and Jade Saroyan went back into the kitchen, chattering for the three siblings to move inside.

"I'm so glad you could make it Tony," Cam said, turning impulsively. Somehow she knew in her dream he was dead, or that he had at least been ill for a long time. Yet in her dream that seemed like a far away nightmare, not reality. She hugged him tightly and he staggered backwards. She could see the red in the threads of his suit as clearly as if they were on the screen of her lab computer. His face was stupid with surprise as she realized belatedly she couldn't hug him because he didn't have any balance. How could she not have seen he had been carefully swaying in place, his muscles so atrophied he couldn't hold himself up, much less hug her back? He fell slowly toward the rocking bench as Cam screamed. There was a terrible crunching sound as his spine snapped in half over the wooden bench. Cam protectively and instinctively as a doctor placed her hand under the back of his head as his skull smashed into the brick windowsill. Regardless of her own hand being crushed and her skin scraping open, his head was already bleeding into her palm, the wet warmness seeping through her fingers.

"How could you?" he whispered, the light already fading from his eyes. His face was losing flesh, his body shrinking, until he was just a fifteen year old boy, buried in a suit too big for him.

"How could you?" Felicia yelled, her hands possessively tearing into Cam's shoulder, trying to drag her away from hurting him further. Cam was screaming, sobbing, trying to push the blood back into his head.

"I _hate _you," Tony venomously cried at her. His eyes grew bright red with the blood he was losing. "_I hate_ _you_."

* * *

Cam gasped awake with a start, her hand full of warm wetness as she instinctively sat up, heart thundering and automatically touched her face to scan for tears. The wetness in her hand appeared to be drool. She ungraciously smeared it into the couch cushions.

Her hands hurt. Cam looked at them in surprise and remembered she had scraped them open while trying to get out of the car.

"Hey," Booth said quietly. She jumped, startled almost out of her skin, to realize he was so close. He hadn't missed a single move. She gulped but her heart immediately calmed. His solid presence was familiar and reassuring. They had been kids together, after all, relatively speaking. They had done much more embarrassing and stupid things than have silly, unrealistic nightmares.

But it had been so real. It had been how it _would have_ been.

Her pressurized lungs seemed to have doubled their scary, rippling feeling inside her chest. She could hardly get enough air. She wondered if she sounded like she was gasping, or just felt like it. The dream had been so eerily real. His hatred burned inside of her. She had never supposed it was Tony who hated _her._ What had Felicia said? His letters had been self pitying? Sad? Angry? What was the word...raw. She wanted desperately to cry. Booth had seen her cry before.

Four times. As long as he had known her, he had seen her cry four times, including when he had interrupted her in the supply closet. She was pretty Cole had seen her cry more than that in the short months she had known him. Pathetic. She was getting old. Wasn't wisdom supposed to come with age? She wanted to laugh now, at the newest lie she had just uncovered.

_I no longer believe in miracles._

She leaned back against the couch as she realized Seeley had just been sitting there. Watching her. Watching her sleep. That man was just a touch beyond creepy. She closed her eyes again, wishing to be anywhere else than here, somewhere she could break down in private. She wondered if she could go to the bathroom without Angela following her in, maybe grab a quick, dry eyed sob in the u-bend without attracting any attention. It wasn't very helpful at making her feel better, but the pressure would dissipate in time.

Booth's voice almost knocked her down. She felt her hands grab onto a pillow to hide her stomach and she clutched it until her knuckles leeched of blood and creaked under her skin with the ache of it.

"You are not alone." She opened her eyes but stared down at her hands. She nodded resolutely.

"Okay."

"You are not alone," he repeated.

"I know." He pulled a Cole – and Cam had to briefly wonder when Cole had trademarked his signature moves of wolfish grinning, head tilting and what Booth was doing now – chin grasping. Booth tilted her face forcefully towards him. She stared straight into his almost black eyes. She knew hers were unreadable. She had made them that way to shutter him out.

"You are not alone." His constant repetition was wearing at her. She didn't even deign to give this one an answer, but it was probably because her throat felt as if a bee had stung the top part of her esophagus and she was having trouble getting her tongue out of her airway. She settled for nodding her assent. He didn't seem to believe her. He put his hands on her shoulders and put his face inches from hers. The heat rolling off of him was what started the trembling she could feel underneath his fingers as she constricted the little sobs. They were crying in her stomach, in her throat, as she stubbornly willed her tear ducts dry and shook with sobs as he repeated the line the fourth time.

"You are not alone." She opened her mouth because her nose no longer worked as a passage for oxygen. It was stopped up with unshed tears. She gasped in a shuddery little breath and almost lost it, the new cold air rattling in her burning chest, summoning the sobs with a new ferocity that had her shaking harder. It took her two more repeated tries of trying to speak before she could even form words.

"Please Booth," she whispered. He shook her and her head lolled like a doll's on a flimsy neck as he enunciated. Didn't he know she was damn trying not to cry? _Fuck. _

"You are _not_ alone." Cam felt her heavy head finally decide which direction it was wobbling and it fell against his shoulder. With the contact came the visceral _feel_ of Tony's head breaking under her hand against the brick. The first sob ripped out of her with so much velocity it sounded vaguely ridiculous, almost inhuman. It didn't sound like crying, and it didn't even come with tears. It was just a ghastly, agony filled, tortured wail. The second, and the third, and the fourth sobs pulsed out of her as she shook, her head still on Booth's shoulder, her nose dripping but her eyes feeling gritty and dry like they were rolled in sand.

He put his big hand between her shoulder blade and moved a quick step to the couch.

"_You're not alone_," he whispered right into the soft shell of her ear. She could feel his lips move against it and leave a tiny little trail of wetness there. "I'm here. I've got you. I won't ever leave."

"Promise?" she choked out. He nodded.

"I won't ever leave. I'm right here. I've got you."

"You don't hate me?" she whispered, remembering loathing that dripped like the blood between her fingers.

"I could never hate you," he whispered back, shocked. "You're my sister, and I love you."

And finally the tears came.


	28. In Her Neck Of The Woods

**If you loooove me, then let me knooooow. (Please add these poorly spelled words to the appropriate music lyircs.)**

* * *

There was a soft scraping of a foot against the concrete and Cam jerked her nodding head off her chest in her swivel chair on the forensic platform. Two weeks of lolling in a quiet state of mourning had given her the compulsive habit of narcalepsy.

"Hey you!" He grinned at her when she skipped – well, lumbered – towards him. "Looks like you finally put on some weight," he smirked. Cam felt a huge grin finally split her weary face and it felt like sun touching Seattle after its typically wet winter.

"And it looks like you finally lost some," she teased right back.

Angela looked up to object to Cam's exuberance at walking but stopped, her mouth open like a fish on a line upon seeing who she was talking to. It was no one the lab had ever seen before. Brennan merely lifted a single quizzical brow before bending back over the body, but Hodgins' tongue almost tangled his shoelaces.

The only word that could really describe the stranger was the slightly cruel taunt of skinhead. But there was simply no other way to illustrate the short but heavily muscled bald Latino man who was striding towards Cam, almost every inch of him tattooed. His appearance was menacing but his smile boyish. Angela had to reassess; he was obviously much younger than he first appeared. Booth followed behind the footsteps, taking him in from the rear, his frown every inch matching Cam's wide grin.

"Sit," Booth growled at her as she swiped the newcomer onto the forensic platform. She didn't even spare him a withering glance, which warmed his heart from worrying too much. She did, however, obediently sink with grace back into the chair.

"Jesus," said the stranger. He touched a large intricately worked crucifix on his right shoulder as he said it. "You look like you're about to pop."

"And you look like you're about to burst right out of your shirt," laughed Cam, as if he had said she was the most beautiful woman on earth. Cam felt giddy; it had been too long. "When did you get so ripped? Last time I saw you, you were just a flabby little boy."

"Well they don't call me Flaco Paco anymore," the Latino man grinned. Cam actually rolled her eyes. The rest of the lab had dropped any pretense of productivity and was watching her unusually animated interaction with interest.

"Sergio, you're being ridiculous."

"And you're being little miss prissy pants," he mimed walking around with his pants up to his chest. She laughed outright, missing the comradery she had lost.

"Not to complain, but why are you here?" she smothered a smile in attempted professionalism. "I haven't seen you in...God has it been years?"

He shrugged and thrust a sheaf of papers in a manila envelope at her. "I need this run."

"Down the street?" Cam asked sweetly. "I don't move so good anymore. Even you could beat me now, Pancho Villa." His glare would have melted the knees on any cop looking at a thug like him. He rippled an attempted shrug that couldn't be completed due to the heavy cording of muscle on his neck and shoulders.

"I mean I need the analysis. Like now."

"_Who _are you?" Booth squinted, finally blurting the question on everyone's tongue. Brennan straightened up.

"Excuse me," she added, in lieu of her partner's manners. Sergio gave her a long once over that had Booth stiffening. He grinned wolfishly at Booth's reaction and turned back to Cam. He purposefully thickened his accent as he answered.

"Me? Oh I'm just Mayra's little brother." How he pronounced it changed it to Maya's lil brudder.

"Who's Mayra?" Hodgins asked, managing to somehow get his jaw cranked back into place. He asked Cam since Sergio seemed to be addressing her. She clicked her own jaw back and forth meditatively, giving Sergio the best evil eye she could muster around her unreasonable happiness at seeing a familiar but long lost face.

"Mayra was my partner," she finally said with a concise nod. She opened the manila envelope just to give her fingers something to do.

"Was?" Brennan said delicately. Booth's face had gone stone cold, his glare flinty and his legs completely ossified.

"She drowned," Cam said shortly, into the empty space of the envelope's mouth. There was a puffed breath of surprise from one of the unabashedly listening interns.

Sergio shifted testily, his face impatient at Cam's seemingly molasses pace. "Yeah well that happens when your face has been smothered in chloroform, and then your body thrown into the Potomac," he said testily. "Wasn't like it was her fault."

"That's what happened?" Booth asked curtly. He was having trouble moving his frozen lips. Cam could sympathize. She knew he was seeing Brennan's titan hair floating in a halo as she moved sluggishly downstream face down. Cam nodded thoughtfully into the lab report, pursing her lips at the slide she held up to the light. Sergio shifted feet again and scratched the other arm, this one covered in a grinning skull.

"Could you please run that?"

"You said please," she smirked, still moving her head to catch the light in between the glass frames.

"Run it," Sergio grunted, opting for threatening. Not a good move. Booth became even more still; Cam knew that was his warning.

"Why?" she asked blithely, slipping it back into the envelope with the papers.

"For old times sake," scoffed Sergio, waving a hand. Cam put the closed envelope on her pregnant stomach (in the absence of a lap) and folded her hands. She dimpled a smile.

"But you're young."

"For my age," he allowed.

"You have your own lab down in Bronx homicide," Cam said in the same impassive voice, a smile still fluttering. There was a restless shuffle among the audience. No one would have pegged him as a cop; he looked like he was on the wrong side of the badge.

"Camille," he forced through gritted teeth. "Come _on_. You know what it's like down there."

"Death without drains," she quoted, her smile still growing. God she had missed the kid. Her smile was slapped off her face with the stark question from Brennan's lips.

"Who did it?" She was addressing Sergio. "Who murdered your sister?" He teeth clenched more. His jaw stuck out of his well-muscled face. He was coated in a light sheen of sweat the way body builders always were when their glands got pumping full of adrenaline.

"A cop killer," he spat. Cam wearily waved a hand at Booth's first sudden lurch forward. Cam knew before he even made eye contact that he would have laid down his life to solve the case of her dead police partner. He would have fought until the bitter end so that he gave her that tiny sense of closure. Her words were more for him than the rest of the lab.

"They caught him Booth." Booth's step, or rather stumble, was halted in its tracks once more as his desperate eyes caught hers. She gave him a small smile of gratitude, a blink of understanding, and a tiny headshake of an apology for letting the thoughts of Brennan be mingled with the horrors of war.

Booth bit his tongue in response, angry that she knew him so well. She twitched a shoulder in laughter and his scowl deepened.

"He was executed a year ago," Sergio's accented voice was quiet, and intense. The mood in the room dropped to silence so loud, Cam was sure she heard a squirrel outside run across the roof. Sergio stared at her meaningfully, his black eyes burning. "I didn't see you there," he said forcefully. Cam clicked her jaw back and forth again and gave a shrug that felt silly on her pregnant frame.

"I had stuff to do."

"Stuff?" Sergio said distastefully, colored highly with disbelief. "_Stuff?_ Like what could you have to do that was so important?"

"I had work," Cam said calmly, dimpling again, knowing it was better than feeding pieces of mental kindling to his volatile temper.

"You joking with me?" he sputtered. "That was during the time you got fired from this joint." Booth looked at the floor out of guilt. Even oblivious Brennan looked uncomfortable and swallowed.

Cam kept her voice, light, blasé. She kicked her heels against the floor and rolled a few feet. "So I had to wash my hair." Sergio peered at her.

"You cut it." His mercurial mood had flipped on to off again.

She shrugged and put the slide on the microscope, turning on the projector. From behind her she could feel his big shoulders unknot with the tension, knowing she was complying. His voice also went down a few degrees.

"You shoulda been there," he said, coming to stand behind her shoulder and shaking his head. The rest of the lab was shamelessly eavesdropping. Cam turned and raised an eyebrow. Two interns smashed foreheads in their scramble to get off the platform and out of her sight. Somewhere else a cart began to roll, its wheel squeaking fiendishly. In opposition, her friends took it as a sign to draw in a circle behind her in morbid curiosity.

"Why I gotta be there?" she snapped. She knew she had startled her friends with her abrupt dialectic switch. It was just so easy to talk slummy to Sergio. He didn't judge her for nothing. They were just two kids on the streets, running away from the cops and the dealers alike, hiding in the bushes and watching fistfights. She felt her temper heat up in response to her decline back into her earlier years. She had been as Cole called her, quite the spitfire.

"Come on," squeaked Sergio. She snapped her jaw length hair around so it whipped at her shoulder as she gave him a glare. He uncrossed his arms as if she had caught him with his fly unzipped and he looked uncomfortable.

"Why? Huh? I see bodies everyday. Death. I don't gotta see no one else die. I ain't goin' to watch no sideshow, watchin' somebody get killed behind a glass cage, strapped to a table."

Sergio looked pained. He swallowed but still said it.

"It was _Mayra_."

"No it wasn't," Cam said forcefully, jamming her eye back to her microscope, trying to rein in her wagging slum talk tongue. She managed to get her inflections halfway between her normal speaking voice and her old way of talking. "That was just the guy who killed her. Getting close to him doesn't get you closer to her." Sergio flipped his head around in a quick circle around his neck, the way a lion would before opening its jaws for the kill, or as if he was being overtaken by a werewolf, transforming with rage.

"Cold bitch," he hissed.

"Skinhead."

"Flake out."

"Cop out."

Brennan clawed Booth in his side with stiff fingers and he jumped as Cam continued to throw one word insults at the tattooed cop that looked like a drug runner.

"Jeez Bones!" he whispered for her ears alone.

"What are-" she started but he hushed her to the glee of the others whose eyes were like saucers observing Cam and her partner's little brother.

"Hey twiggy," taunted Sergio. "What got into you? Acid?"

"That shit's bad for you," Cam sneered behind the microscope. She twisted around with a feral smile that made her look ten years younger. It was the kind of smile that belonged on Michelle more than her. "Or didn't you hear?"

"Nah, it's no good. The dealers all left in the neighborhood."

"Yeah?" she asked it casually.

"Yeah," he snorted. "We busted ass pretty good." And just as quickly as they had begun, their fight stopped. Their 'audience' was left blinking…dazed.

"So he died up right?" She asked it with a throw of her head more used on Felicia.

Sergio looked positively malicious.

"He died up right."

"Upright?" mouthed Brennan. "But that would-" Booth covered her mouth with his hand. No one even noticed.

"You get a new tat for that too?" Sergio smiled, and nodded with his whole body.

"Oh yeah."

"I know you already got one for Mayra over your heart. Where'd the new one go?"

"Girl," crowed Sergio. "I'd be breakin about six laws sideways if I tried to show you."

Cam laughed and recalled herself, realizing suddenly there was more than just her and Sergio in the room.

"Well," she said, her voice back to its usual brisk professionalism. Sergio blinked, a smile tightening his lips as if to say 'what we gotta do for the job.' She slit her eyes in response to his unsaid teasing. She stared up at him through long black lashes and realized just how far he'd come from that broken up seventeen year old boy, who lost his older sister at the old age of 21.

"Looks like whoever this belongs to is male. Asian descent. That's all I got."

"Asian?" snorted Sergio in disbelief. "You sure? There ain't a lot of Asians on our streets if you know what I mean."

"Very sure," Cam said as she printed off the sheet in color and briskly circled all the right markers for the forensic department back in homicide. She quickly drew a little smiley face with a devil's horns and a tail – her signature from her rookie days – and grinned up at him. Sergio gave her a chin up nod and held his fist up so his arm was crooked at a 90 degree angle. At first Cam was baffled by the gesture until she saw the same drawing inked onto the skin above his elbow.

"He always laughs when he breaks noses," Sergio quipped. Cam felt her throat tightening up. Although it was silly and sentimental, she was truly touched at the gesture of making her a permanent part of his life story, written in ink all over the pages of his skin.

"Go on," she drawled. It sounded like 'gouwan.' "Get outta here. You've got somebody to find."

"I do," he nodded. He suddenly shifted, his smile boyish instead of feral again. He couldn't be more than 24. He gestured at her stomach. "So you got married?" Her grin turned wry.

"Wouldn't you believe it if I said I didn't?" His grin sank into a rough smirk.

"What did I always say?"

"Say it again and I'll beat the living shit out of you," Cam said with a cheerful enthusiasm. Sergio had been a chauvinistic little prick who thought his sister working in homicide would only get her knocked up. Common in their neck of the woods.

"Wouldn't be the first time," he sighed gustily. He threw her a gang sign just to piss her off.

"Get out you street rat," she laughed and shooed him away. He bounded down the platform stairs.

"Hey super _puta_," he called. Super bitch.

"What _cabrón_?" she razzed back. Bastard.

"You poppin out a boy?"

"A girl," she called back.

"TYPICAL," he shouted through the cupped tube of the evidence folder. And he was gone.

Booth let out a low, long whistle.

"Damn," he said with a shiny little smirk. "I had forgotten who you were."

"Don't flatter yourself any," she laughed back, standing wobblingly to her feet. Brennan was immediately by her side, holding her elbow. Cam smothered the need to flinch but smiled instead to tell Brennan she had done something socially correct. Brennan flushed with pleasure as Booth churlishly dragged her swivel chair down the steps and plunked it down for her as she cautiously but firmly moved down the steps.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he objected. "I haven't really changed!" Cam laughed and clapped a hand to the inside of her wrist. Booth flushed fuchsia. Angela mimicked the gesture with a frown.

"What does that mean?"

"It means," Cam said while Booth became increasingly hot around the collar. Just to annoy him she took her own sweet time getting to the rolling chair before he could drag her away. "That I was there when this one," she backhanded his stomach and he grimaced. "Got his tattoos on his wrists. He had just finished basic training and was about to deploy."

"It made sense at the time," he grumbled. "I was just a kid." Cam knew he had gotten them as a good luck charm. She didn't tease him about that though; there were always limits to how far she would push him. She knew he always did the same for her.

"Yeah," giggled Cam as she sank into the chair. "Would you believe me if I told you he got so freaked out he _fainted_?" She flopped into it theatrically as she finished her sentence.

Booth grabbed the back of the chair and dragged her away to laughter and a smattering of applause as she bowed her way out.


	29. Peas and Carrots

** So I had this amazing plot and stuff; then the finale happened. Then I was stumped so I over enthusiastically updated my other story in recompense. I ignored this one for like 100 years. Probably the longest I've ever gone without an update….ever. There are no apologies sufficient. But please believe I am trying to finish this story so every reader can have a happy ending (heart)**

* * *

"You're sure you can handle this?" Cole asked her and Cam nodded resolutely. They stood, side by side, staring in awe at the giant emporium of baby clothes, toys and room accessories.

"My only problem is that Michelle isn't moving out," Cam said ruefully. "I had almost counted on her going to college and using _her_ room as the nursery. Now the problem is that I will have _two_ girls and no where to put them!" Cam swallowed around the feeling of "two girls."

"And it's kind of hard to ask an eighteen year old girl to share with an infant."

"And I won't!" Cam assured him. He childishly kissed her neck, just up under her chin with just enough to make her laugh and make her swoon.

"Stop that," she said in perfect irritation. "You know how unfair it is." Damn that man, he knew _exactly _the effects he had on her. She was pregnant; not dead.

"Maybe for you," Cole sing-songed, skipping ahead with his stroller. They both had one of his daughters out in front of them. Cam felt happy, knowing that people's curious gazes over their unconventional pairing made them both look more complete, more like a family. It was a feeling they both were unused to.

"Awww," crooned a sales representative, magically mushrooming up next to Cam's side, sensing a spending spree. "What a beautiful baby!" Cam was pushing Andie this time. Cole was making Kitty gurgle and spit with glee as he zoomed up and down the aisles making racecar noises. The dearth of men in the store was garnering him quite a lot of attention, and envy, from the other women given his obvious devotion to his daughter.

"Thank you," Cam spluttered. "It's his," she gestured. The sales rep stared blankly at her and tittered a long laugh.

"Oh I know that! I saw you two come in together!" Cam realized belatedly that her explanation had been taken as a rebuttal of a supposed come on. Cam suppressed a smile. She would have to be blind not to see that the clerk was gay. She laughed politely as well but did not correct herself. Too complicated.

"What's her name?" the clerk continued, putting his finger near Andie's face to grab. She was just old enough to find that annoying and began to cry.

"Andie," Cam told him over the baby's wails as she hurriedly unbuckled the toddler and lifted her close to her face. She had become more adroit at buckles since being pregnant and having to sit down most of the time was tiring enough. It was a miracle her doctor had allowed her to walk – barely – for a few hours a day now. Cole had agreed to help her baby shop – well he had wrestled her into agreement – if she would spend the whole day with him and he could make her dinner.

After living on whatever was frozen and easily heated for months – Michelle not being one for the cooking scene – it was an ideal date.

"What are we looking for today?" the man rubbed his hands together in glee.

Cam opened her mouth but the voice that came out of it was far too masculine to be hers. She shivered with both pleasure and outright annoyance at Cole's ability to sneak up behind her. He put his chin on his shoulder and ground it in, just to make her flinch and her knees buckle, and to make the sales rep laugh, which he did – profusely.

"She needs the works…Tom," he read off of the man's nametag. "A new crib, a new rocking chair, a high stool, some baby clothes…"

"I…" Cam started.

"You see," Cole steamrolled her explanation or stuttering with his familiar coyote grin, "we'd use the ones we have but they," he gestured at the strollers and seemed surprised to find Andie peeping over Cam's other shoulder at him. "They are still using theirs."

A convenient excuse for their de facto family lie. Cam shot him a grateful look to avoid the sales rep's awkward questions about recycling baby clothes.

"Great!" squealed Tom. "Wonderful! I only have two questions." His double exclamation was forcibly reminding Cam of the intern Daisy. It was an unpleasant reminder.

"Okay," Cam said dubiously. This whole new Mom thing was _very _different when your child didn't already come out as a teenager.

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"A girl." Tom squirmed in half rapturous glee; girls had more options in adorableness and expense.

"Yay! Another one!" Cam squinted at him and exchanged amused glances with Cole.

"Ok…" she said dragging it out. "What was your next question?" Tom clapped his hands together and rubbed them like the villain in countless cartoon shows.

"Are you ready to have _fun?"_

* * *

One mahogany crib with mosquito netting canopy, a matching mahogany rocking chair and high stool, and a dozen brand new tiny sports teams jerseys later, Cam stood huffing in her living room, watching dry mouthed as Cole insisted he would bring the crib up the driveway and into the house. He had gotten too hot after the first mahogany rocking chair and so had stripped down to his undershirt. She was trying very hard not to ogle as he slipped and slid the crib through the doorway of her house and towards her den with one splendid, strong push that was more than half a stumble.

"You should sit down!" he called to her, panting. She obediently sunk into the chair but bounced back up –well, lumbered back up – when she realized she needed to supervise. It was her entire life, after all, both in her home life and in her work life. She followed his glacial pace one bridal footstep at a time.

"The den is where we're going to put it. We'll need to move the desk."

"Are you _serious_?" Cole puffed a bellow and Cam flinched up against the wall he had almost pinned her against just weeks before.

"What?" she asked, amusement lacing through the barb.

"Why didn't you tell me that so I could move it first!"

"I have to move everything off of it."

"Good Lord woman, how many computers do you need!"

"One's Michelle's laptop," she sulked. "And I need a lot of appliances for work – a fax, a scanner, a printer…"

"There are these great inventions," he panted, leaning the large flat box up against the wall with a clang. A picture of Michelle rattled slightly. "They're called three-in-one printers. Also, that computer looks older than my grandmother – and she's dead."

"Cole," she said, her voice rising in a warning inflection. He scowled over one sweaty shoulder.

"Don't _Cole_ me in that voice of yours," he mocked, a snarl flitting about his canine teeth. "You _always_ say my name like that when you think I'm up to something."

"And you always get defensive when you _are_," she retorted. "I do _not_ need a new computer or fax machine or whatever." She gestured. "I think we could move the bookshelves."

"And put them _where_?" he asked her sarcastically. Cam bit her lip. He had a point. She briefly dwelled on leaving them, but flashed back to when Felicia fell and hit her eye on a knob of a cabinet as a child, splitting open a tiny area over her cheekbone. Cam had ridden to the hospital at age nine positive she was riding with the Phantom of the Opera in half a bloody mask. No cabinets. She sighed.

"We'll have to get rid of them."

"And all of the stuff that's _in_ them?"

"Well I'll go through it while you assemble the crib." The words tasted strangely in her mouth. _Crib_. The entirety of what she was doing caught up with her in a moment and she swayed on her feet. If Booth couldn't do it…if her own father could barely keep it together. _Oh my God_, she realized slowly, the panic inundating her and leeching her face of its usual warm flush, _I don't even know whose baby this is. What if he shows up and wants custody? What if this little girl will have medical problems I don't even know about? Should I tell him? How will I find him?_ She staggered slowly back against on of the shelves, one hand compulsively clutching her stomach.

_I don't even know his name_, she realized, tearing up. _Oh God, what am I doing?_

"Cam! Cam! Are you okay? Are you hurt? How's the baby? What's going on? You have to talk to me!" Cole was right next to her, supporting her weight around her shoulders with one hand and his other on her stomach as well, feeling around for problems.

"Let's sit down, easy, easy. I'll call an ambulance." She clutched his sleeve compulsively realizing that he thought she was going into early labor. She meant to lead into the conversation gracefully but couldn't. Panic seized her muscles up into lockjaw as she spat the words at him, sounding strangely harsh and terrified.

"What if I'm not a good mother? What if I mess this up?" His face crumpled with relief stirred with...pity?... and he sank down, back against her study shelves, the faint scent of his sweat mingling with his hundred dollar cologne. He breathed out a long winded sigh between pursed lips, watching as it rippled across some of the loosely torn plastic on the crib outside the door.

"I think about that every day with my girls," he said slowly, without looking at her.

"But you're an amazing father!" she protested.

"And you're an amazing everything," he promised her solemnly.

"I'm not good enough for this."

"No one ever is. The kids make you good enough." She hated when he sounded so smart, so smug, so…so…sincere.

"I walked out on Michelle," she swallowed.

"You walked out on her father," he corrected.

"I can't do this," she breathed. Only then did he look at her.

"Yes you can."

"No…really…I can't." She shook her head slowly. "Oh my God, what was I thinking? I'm a _trainwreck_. I can't raise a child."

"You raised Michelle, and you're hardly a trainwreck," he scoffed.

"Michelle came to live with me when she was sixteen. It's been two years. Andrew already did all the difficult things like instilling her with a moral code and manners and….and…"

"And…and…" Cole mocked with a slightly cruel edge. "Half the time I'm so scared that my poor girls will grow up dressing fifteen years out of date or so poorly they'll be made fun of!"

"Don't worry about that," Cam tossed her hand. "They'll be beautiful no matter what."

"And I don't understand girl social code," moaned Cole. "It'll be a miracle if they make friends at all!"

"I wouldn't let that happen," Cam said firmly.

"That's assuming we still know each other," Cole said glumly.

"Well even if you move away to…you know…Nebraska or somewhere, you can still _call_ me," she pointed out reasonably.

"Well how come I'm the one who has to move away?" Cole said churlishly, resting the crooks of his elbows on his folded knees and looking deceptively nonchalant despite his well muscle arms.

"Well, I just thought…you being a doctor…there are a lot of practices…and a hospital everywhere. There's only one Jeffersonian."

"So you thought _Nebraska_ was a good place for my proposed move?"

"It was the first place I thought of that seemed far away," snapped Cam.

"Well what's wrong with Los Angeles? It's full of shallow doctors like me."

"You're not shallow," she said uncharitably, picking a cuticle.

"Aw," he schmoozed, "you gave me a compliment. You're an angel."

"Don't you think it'd be more sincere if you didn't have to fish for one?" she sniped irritably, swatting his hand away from her stomach. "And just because I'm pregnant does _not_ give you or the sales rep, or the elevator man, or the man who makes my sandwiches at the deli _permission_ to touch me. At all."

"Come on, let me feel Toni kick. Just a little one?"

"Maybe she's not kicking right now."

"Well judging from that half constipated expression doll, she is."

"Shut up," she whined, feeling half thrilled at his attentiveness and half annoyed at his hovering, childlike hand.

"I'm not touching you," he sing songed. He leaned in closer, the air between them heating considerably from his slick skin.

"What are you? Four?"

"I'm not touching you," he said, his voice lower, his smile wider, his finger circling more slowly. What Cam did next surprised even herself. The hand that had been draped over her stomach shot out and grabbed his wrist and her other fisted into his hair as she dragged his smug stupid smile up against her mouth and kissed it right off. Their kisses had gotten more frequent, more heated, but they had always had some restraint. The dead ghosts of their families had always been silent elephantine spectators, and their crushed hearts had always squeezed painfully a hands width apart, keeping the distance between them. Yet now Cam flagrantly ignored all their boundaries in favor of slipping her tongue between his teeth, tasting the tiny tinge of salt at the corners of his mouth and mixing with the coffee he had for their lunch together.

His surprise was swept away and his stiffness lasted only a second before he grabbed her back, his hand trying to twist out of her grasp as she pinned it on the floor, away from her stomach. His other hand was cupping her neck, pressing her so hard she wasn't sure if the blackness swimming in and out of her vision was from his inherent roughness against her carotid or from his amazing abilities with his tongue. She giggled a little into his mouth as he ran it lightly over the roof of hers and then fell back against the cabinets as he followed her, pressing her to the floor.

Cam was positive he was going to strip off her clothes there and then, and only decency made her shove him off. She wanted to laugh uproariously. Decency? Hell, what a sweet little lie she told herself. The real reason was that she hadn't shaved in a month.

"What?" he asked, his coyote grin wrapping right around his ears like a pair of jackass spectacles. The smile crinkled around his eyes, furrowing his eyebrows and sharpening his cheekbones; it made his rakish laughter even more devastating and simultaneously more annoying than usual.

"If I wasn't pregnant…" she huffed, holding her hands up to him petulantly, asking him silently to help her up.

"Oh, when I'd be done with you," he promised solemnly, heaving her to her feet, "you would be." And he left her gaping like a fish, hands still in the air where he had held them as he went to unload the rest of the car.


	30. When The Cat's Away, The Mice Will Play

It was always said that the best best stories included the richest and ripest of details: the smell of the sweat, the motion of changing one's socks, or tugging on hair that _made_ the story. Cam thought it was the smell of burning food. It wasn't one that was usually smelled, not in her house. Although she was no Julia Child, she had a very select but small amount of things she could make well. Chicken wasn't very hard to cook, nor was boiling pasta. But the more she read about this terrible restaurant in one of her normally trashy novels (one with a half naked man on the front so she had slipped a pillow in front of the cover) she noticed that the smell wasn't just in her head. It was in her house. She turned bemusedly to glance back in her kitchen where Cole, self assuredly one of the best cooks in the city was wreaking havoc on her cooking ware.

She wandered in absently, or more astutely, blundered in - which was a mixture of walking and thundering - only to find the shock of her life. Cole, the food snob, debonair Boston rogue, was sitting, almost weeping, in front of a burnt mess that was about to set off her smoke alarm.

"What on earth is this?" she cried, and he looked up, his expression changing from utter despair to devilish delight.

"I made dinner honey," he said in a falsetto tone. She looked at him and rolled her eyes.

"_You_ said," she accused, "that you were an excellent cook." He looked immediately chagrined, which, typically for his four-year-old charm, made his ears stand up and his eyebrows wiggle. His coyote grin crept up around the corners of his mouth.

"Well…" he wheedled, "I may have exaggerated. I'm actually a…just…not a good cook. I just…wanted to impress you?" he fumbled, ending it as a question. "I had counted on this being a lot easier. I thought that…well…you really liked Emilio's and well, I love food, I just can't cook worth a damn…" He was stumbling over his words; Cam thought it was cute. His poor, stuttering speech was more adorable than a finely cooked four-course meal. Well, almost. Cam was starving and was busy tossing _whatever_ he had tried cooking down the disposal as it still smoldered. The kitchen smelled so horrible, she insisted opening all the windows despite the early spring heat. They obliged and they aired out the kitchen to the mid evening air. She looked at him helplessly.

"Well, now what?"

"Can you cook?" Cam winced but told the truth.

"Not…really." And without a word to each other about the hopelessness of the situation, they both began to laugh. They didn't laugh hysterically, but they did chuckle at one another's faces and how absolutely preposterous the entire situation was. Cole finally, resignedly sighed and thew up his hands.

"Well _one_ of us had better learn to cook before this baby gets here," he stormed.

Cam stopped laughing, and he looked immediately horrified.

"I…I'm sorry," he started. "That sounded like we were married…but I was just…caught in the moment…of course, that's not what I-" She hastened to reassure him.

"Of course not, no, I…I…I understood." And the awkward tension that always stood between them, which was his dead wife, overtook them.

"Well…" Cam said, attempting to lightening the mood with her usual dark cynicism. "At least the baby will only eat baby food for a year and a half. We have that long." He laughed weakly.

"We have that long."

"Well," she said looking over at him with her arms crossed as she leaned against the counter. She just realized he was in the exact same position. "You don't have that long." His face broke into a craggy smile.

"Oh crap," he breathed, his eyes twinkling as he looked over. "Angel, you're right."

"Don't-" she began, holding a finger up to his face at the somewhat ambiguous endearment. She was half convinced he only used it on her to annoy the crap out of her to induce her into going into labor. She gulped when his quick tongue darted out and licked it, just once, and just childishly enough for her to be disgusted instead of turned on. She wiped it mock-angrily on his sweater.

The air was thick with the tension. A bit of whine crept into her voice.

"Do you want to go out to eat?" she asked desperately. He nodded fervently.

"I _know_ restaurants. I may not know food, but doll do I know restaurants." She sighed and let him walk her to the car, right before he slammed her up against it and kissed her before yanking open the door.

* * *

Cam had bruises the next day. Cole was responsible for almost all of them, except for the one that she garnered when she bumped into the shelves shin first in the middle of the night because Cole had left them in the hallway before he went home. Cam wanted to bring them to the office but didn't have the physical ability to move them. She had contemplated asking Booth, but he was all over the map these days. Their cases now were almost as lumbering and cumbersome as her pregnancy. They moved sluggishly, with no real leads, with no intensity and the incredibly textbook cases of gunshot wounds made identifying cause of death not only possible, but almost carelessly too easy. She had run the numbers two or three times before she had finally accepted that the Jeffersonian had actually gotten a relatively normal homicide case with very little out of the ordinary. But since their jobs were defining and solving out of the ordinary crimes, everyone in the office was distracted and restless.

The entire concrete structure echoed with the little sounds that let Cam know what her people were up to. Like a great, throbbing heart, the lab beat out its own consistent rhythms. The Reggae music and intermittent clacking of a paintbrush against glass serenaded Angela's obvious painting spree. Cam didn't even have the heart or effort to care that Angela was using work time for personal time. She hadn't even been needed for a facial reconstruction, and since Brennan and Booth were spending so much time exclusively together, Brennan hadn't set her best friend on a new, but more mundane, task. There was one wheel rolling out of consistency in Hodgins' three wheeled swivel chair as he shoved his legs under his workstation and pushed off before reeling himself back in and doing it again. Whenever he caught Cam's eye, he'd cram his own onto his microscope, but Cam knew without a doubt his childish love of going back and forth while watching mold grow was superseding his efforts.

When Booth walked through the doors there was a palpable hum of attention in the air, like the bees being disturbed by a drone, but he quickly traced his usual path to Brennan's closed office - she was the only one who ever closed her door - and retreated. Cam glanced up, curious, but typically for Brennan she was working, typing endlessly away at her computer. Her stunned expression, even through the blinds, had long given Cam the certainty she was working on her book, and not on lab reports. Cam, herself, was guiltlessly shopping for baby items online, racking up a great deal of debt, and wondering if the shoes she was looking at on her computer - typically five inch manolo blancs - would ever fit on her swollen feet again, even after pregnancy. Cam didn't like finishing the thought of _after_ pregnancy.

Although her breakdown with Cole had been brief, it had been very, very real and she was more self conscious than ever about her situation. _Who_ would she put on the birth certificate as the father? Did they have a policy for that? Could she lie? Say…say it was Cole's? The crazy thought was not as beyond her as she thought it would be. She shoved it away, horrified at herself. She had just added the most adorable pair of tiny baby booties - though it was already March - when there was a polite knock on the glass of her door. She started guiltily, minimizing the window though she knew that her friends wouldn't judge her, and spun around in her chair. Booth's face did the surprising thing it always did when she turned around, like he kept forgetting she was pregnant until he saw the front of her. It was sort of flattering, in a strange, old-timey friendship way. Cam gestured for him to come in. Brennan was - as always - half a step behind. Cam noticed Hodgins had left his work station, and Angela was hovering behind him, her fingers and wrists smeared with dried paint. Wearily, Cam gestured her audience in as well, wondering what new torture she had in store.

Brennan stepped forward first, as if giving an oral presentation. She beamed, swiping her hair out of one corner of her mouth grandiosely and smiling as if she was the benefactor to the entire country.

"We have a gift," she announced. Out of the corner of her eye, Cam saw Booth cringe. Her lips tightened in the barest hint of a smile. It made Seeley blush just a little more around the ears and hot about the collar, not that anyone else noticed.

"A gift," Cam said skeptically, one eyebrow raised. She hadn't had a baby shower for a reason, but neither had Angela, at least not a formal one.

"Here," Brennan said, with one eye checking Booth, as if she were a little girl, making sure she was doing something right. She thrust an envelope at Cam. Cam swallowed and took it. Everyone's expectant eyes made her numb fingers work as she opened it. The green of the paper told her long before her eyes could that it was a check. She pulled it out and almost ripped it in half in her shock. She might have even squeaked. Her eyes flooded, damn them, of their own accord.

"I…I can't accept this."

"It's a check for Michelle's college fund," Brennan explained, as if she were being incredibly dense. "It's from all of us. Booth chipped in too…sort of." She gave him a reproachful glare. He shrugged helplessly.

"I gave her a hundred bucks," he protested, his hands open, his shoulders hunched. "I'm sorry. That's all I could-" he stopped when Cam grabbed his hand and squeezed so hard she was pretty sure he had stopped talking from the pain. She could actually feel herself grinding his metatarsals against one another, leeching the blood from his veins. She immediately let go, repentant.

"You all…did this?" Cam asked, looking around the room at one compassionate face to another. "All of you?" She swallowed and with shaking fingers, made to give it back to Brennan. Brennan backed away almost too quickly, twisting her hands behind her back so that they couldn't in any way grab the paper. Frustrated, Cam turned to Booth, who backed away as well. She turned mutely to Angela, who laced her fingers behind her back, grinning, and then turned to Hodgins who crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow as if to ask if she were serious.

"I…I can't accept this," she said again, more urgently this time.

"You can and you will," Booth growled, "If not for anything, than for us being such jerks. Letting you fall by the wayside so to speak."

"You mean just you," Brennan put in unexpectedly, startling a laugh out the group. Even Booth cracked a tiny, guilty smile.

"Well…yeah," he confessed sheepishly. He frowned suddenly, his sniper face threatening. "And for what Felicia did."

"You're not responsible for her," Cam chided. Brennan looked uncomfortable.

"It makes us...unhappy...to see you unhappy," she stumbled. Cam raised her eyebrows at Angela who was looking as shocked and proud as anyone in the room, as if her little girl was growing up and finally understanding emotions.

"This is…too much," Cam choked out, her throat closing up on her unexpectedly. She meant it was too much in the sense that their 'gift' was outrageous, and also that the amount was too much for her to accept.

"If you really want," Brennan offered rather unwillingly, "you can pay us back…but that would be construed as rude since it is a gift." Cam raised a graceful eyebrow. If she didn't _know_ better, she would have said Brennan was playing her with a guilt trip.

"A gift?"

"For Michelle," Hodgins put in.

"As _her_ baby shower gift," Angela said kindly, head cocked as she watched Cam try to keep her cool and fail miserably. "We never got to throw one for her, even though you had a new daughter."

"Oh _God_," Cam gasped. "Don't do this for Toni too!"

"Only when she gets old enough," Brennan smiled crookedly. Her partner was wearing a matching smile, obviously more at home on his ridiculously handsome face. He wasn't saying much…at least not out loud. Everything else he was saying was 90% of what was choking Cam up. He was saying _I'm sorry. I'm sorry for bailing on you, for freaking on you, for judging you, for not believing you, for only having $100 when the others had millions to give. I'm sorry I'm such a shitty best friend. _Cam swallowed but kept eye contact. It was her entire equivalent of a tearful _it's okay_. She was only emotional on the inside. That was what the problem was. She wished she could just expunge emotion all together, as Brennan seemingly did.

"Oh, I have a feeling she won't need it," Angela laughed throatily. Cam blushed a darker shade and pretended to be scandalized. Brennan's face lightened with understanding.

"You are insinuating of course, that she might marry the man she is dating." Cam blushed even darker. Booth's eyes were amused to the point that she felt like he was laughing at her because she was having the naked-at-work-dream again.

Angela laid a hand on Brennan's arm and smiled seductively. "Of course I am," she laughed.

"There's something i've been meaning to ask you," Cam found herself blurting. She was addressing Brennan but then turned to include Booth as well. She held both their arms in her hands, outstretched in front of her. It had been an impulsive grab, one she almost instantly regretted, but she tamped down her discomfort at touching (Booth loved it, which wasn't her favorite quality of his) and held on as she looked them both in the eye. She drew in a huge breath.

"I want you to be Michelle's godparents."

"What?" Booth was bewildered.

"Well," Cam struggled for a moment, gesturing, secretly relieved to find an excuse for letting go. By Brennan's face, she wasn't the only one who had found the few seconds unbearably awkward. "You know Felicia…just look what she _did_. To Michelle. Why would I want my daughter to live with _her?_"

"That's true." Brennan mused thoughtfully.

"But we're not married!" Booth yelped. Cam ignored him and turned to Hodgins and Angela.

"And I want you to be Toni's godparent's, and also if something happens to them." Angela nodded seriously, tearing up.

"Yeah, yeah of _course,"_ Hodgins assured her.

"We wanted all of you to be our baby's legal guardians," Angela told the group. "We can't think of a better family than ours." There was a tight moment when they all looked at each other. Booth cleared his throat, looking at Cam desperately.

"I…I don't know what to say." Cam met his gaze squarely.

"Say that you'll do it." He exchanged a glance with his partner.

"We'll do it," they chorused. The other three flinched. Their synchronization was sometimes uncanny.

The moment was broken by her phone buzzing. There was a sudden floundering that was almost comical if it didn't happen so often, where everyone started to pat themselves down, hands in pockets, heads tilting a funny way, and stopping young Dr. Sweets in his tracks as he stared, momentarily speechless as Angela slapped both her hands to her butt in search of the buzz. He had just opened his mouth to ask what was going on before Cam emerged victorious out of the depths of her boundless purse and she collapsed in her chair as she answered.

"Hello?" she said breathlessly.

"Hello doll," drawled a very familiar voice.

"What do you want?" she asked waspishly. It annoyed her when Angela's face flooded with amusement and everyone around her head traded significant arch glances as if she were blind. She waved irritably at them. Suddenly it was they who seemed to be struck momentarily blind, for not one of them heeded her annoyed hand gestures in the slightest.

"I know we were together yesterday, but since our dinner failed so spectacularly and the only thing open was IHOP - I was thinking we could go out for drinks, well my drinks, and dancing?" Cam didn't mention she had loved late night pancakes with him.

"I am basically nine months pregnant," she snapped. "It'll be like dancing with a beached manatee."

"Ooh, the hottie doctor asked you out _dancing_?" Angela simpered. She nodded vigorously. "You should most _definitely_ say yes." Booth was grinning that stupid smug grin. He nodded too.

"You should," he said innocently, his eyebrows waggling just the slightest bit to make fun of her. She ground her teeth at his stupid double entendre; even Sweets had picked up on the sexual innuendo. She stopped immediately when the sound radiated into the phone. He laughed outright.

"I can _hear_ you grinding your jaw together," he drawled even more slowly. She forced her jaw apart with concerted effort. She didn't want to end up toothless by sixty.

"I'm busy tonight," she griped. She quickly snapped at Sweets for her to give a reason, a piece of paper, a gesture, _anything_ to back up her statement. He smiled in his most shrink like way and raised his eyebrows. Cam squinted at him and mouthed _I hate you_. He held both thumbs way up for her with an enthusiastic smile. He would have been more obnoxious if he wasn't so damn cute. She knew her scowl was hitching at the sides. The kid was insufferable.

"I know you aren't. You just want to sit around and watch tv with a pint of ice cream."

"And what if I do?" she retorted. She stood unsteadily and immediately a confluence of people stepped forward to help. She almost growled, jutting her lower jaw out so far they stopped in their tracks. She pointed firmly towards the door. Angela rolled her eyes, grabbed her husband's hand, and towed him off. Seeing Angela leave, Brennan left. Sweets and Booth lingered a few moments longer as Cole blithely detailed his plans for the evening, but then became bored with their game and slunk out as well.

She wasn't sure if she was more annoyed by Cole's ignoring her wishes, or somewhat tickled that she knew he would have listened seriously if she had asked him seriously.

"It'll be fun," he assured her. "We'll only dance the slow dances. You can get virgin mojitos. You like those right?"

"Do they make virgin shots?" she griped.

"No."

"It was rhetorical."

"I know," he said cheerfully. "I was just being obnoxious."

"Goodbye," she informed him. She hung up. Damn him though, he texted her in the seconds before she could even toss her phone onto the steel surface of her desk. _Pick you up at 7._ _Dress nicely._

"I always dress nicely," she grumbled, and texted that to him for good measure.

"Last word," he texted back. She felt a little smile slink up her face, remembering the first time he had said it.

"So," Angela said, leaning in the doorway, "where are you going to go?"

Cam smiled. She realized she might actually need to shave if she was going to wear a dress.

* * *

Cam knew she was stepping on his feet; it was good revenge, though her conscience twinged a little when she saw his face spasm the first time with the surprise. She was stuffed to the max full of good hot bread from a wonderful Greek restaurant and whatever happened to be in the pita she had ordered. She felt…sloshy…that was it, from the multiple (albeit virgin) drinks she had had. She had already gone to the bathroom four times. Her stomach felt extremely full, and she felt like she was probably cushioning the baby with a big waterbed. She had always tended to bloat. She frowned, even though the song was sweet. It ended and with relief, Cam started to their table, ready for a moment to just _sit down_ even though she had danced only two songs since her last rest.

She heard the opening strains of the song in the back of her mind but felt the yank to her hand hard. Cole raised his eyebrows and lip synched the words. "_Well she was just…seventeen. If you know what I mean…" _he gave her the long once over and a jerked up nod as he pulled her into him. He sang a little, though pitching his voice an accent to match the Beatles. _"And the way she looked, was way beyond compare." _Cam flushed when she realized how she had first looked upon meeting the extravagant Cole Hart. Literally like a trainwreck - or more accurately, a car crash. He grabbed up her hands and spun her around him. "_So how could I dance with another - ooooo - when I saw her standing there." _Cole actually howled the oooo's. Cam wanted to die; his exuberance was gathering a crowd, which was watching them. He moved to the middle of the dance floor and spun her out again. She concentrated on not falling. "_Well she…looked at me. And I, I could see that before too long, I'd fall in love with her…."_ Cam could hardly hear the rest of the words. Did he mean it? Or was he just singing along? She realized by the time he got to "_Well my heart went boom, when she crossed the room and I held her hand in mine" _Cam realized the entire dance floor had cleared out for them as Cole waggled his eyebrows devilishly. She realized for the first time for all her awkward thick footsteps and lumbering, that Cole was actually a good dancer. He put some flare into it, and did jazz hands at her until she laughed. He nodded encouragingly and she unwillingly joined him. He tailored all his self made steps to things she could do. Every chorus they'd meet up again and step around like a poorly waltzing teenage couple at their first wedding reception or at junior league cotillion. At the end of the song, Cole clapped a hand to his heart, and then grabbed her up next to him. Cam was laughing and she realized everyone else was clapping.

"Free drinks!" someone in the crowd called.

"You mean for us right?" Cole catcalled back. The crowd rippled a laugh, amused with him. He was sweating along his hairline but seemed genuinely to be enjoying himself.

"How does ice cream look now?" he asked smugly right as, to Cam's utter _disbelief_, two drinks appeared for them, compliments of the house.

"How do you do that?" she asked scathingly, which was her way of being curious. He seemed to enjoy her feigned temper. She realized she was playing right into his carefully self laid ego trip. She crooked half a smile and flicked her eyes towards the ceiling.

"Do what, darling?" he asked innocently as he held her chair for her to sit in. The way he always drawled darling reminded her of a western. She sank down gratefully, already drinking. Hers, luckily, was not chalk full of the sugary alcohol that Cole's drinks seemed to consist of. Cam realized she was so obviously pregnant their dance must have been even more humorous, but also more heartfelt, than she had first thought. People probably expected them to be out for their anniversary, first child on the way.

"Get free stuff," she sighed.

"It's my devastating good looks," he assured her smugly.

"Right," she agreed politely, wrapping her lips around her straw. He pouted but then brightened.

"And of course the most gorgeous woman in the room on my arm." Cam laughed in spite of herself at his shamelessness.

"Of course. Good answer." She leaned over for the kiss and stole a quick one.

They sat out three more dances, though a few patrons came over to compliment them on their coordination, and to congratulate them, as Cam had suspected, on their new baby.

A slow song came on, slow enough even for Cam's tired feet. She let Cole drag her mostly willingly to the floor. His mood had darkened - or mellowed - with the wearing night. It was close to eleven. He gathered her up carelessly, as if her petite frame was the same as a giant rag doll. Cam pouted, realizing at last that he probably called her _doll_ because of her size. How perfectly irritating.

At first they danced in silence but Cole cleared his throat enough for Cam to look up.

"You remember you said when you were a trainwreck?" Cole asked shrewdly. Her defenses were immediately up. She swallowed but pretended (or aimed) for nonchalance.

"Yes but…I was panicking."

"Fear reveals men's true character," he quoted. She wrinkled her nose.

"Who said that?" He lifted his eyebrows.

"No idea." He always made her laugh. She let her head touch against his arm as a means of conveying her amusement before looking back up at his face.

He pointed a hand of stiff fingers at her like a crazy shaman casting a spell. She flinched back at a near miss with her eye. She wrinkled her nose in annoyance.

"You is to trainwreck, as me is to Hiroshima." She squinted at him.

"What does that even _mean_?" He nodded sagely.

"Oh you know what it means. You're pretty smart, angel." The last line was said in his mobster voice that he used in his broad Boston brogue, flaunted solely to annoy her.

"I'm not an angel."

"Oh a devil?"

"You had a poorly illustrated point?"

"Poorly illustrated? I gave you an analogy."

"The most terrible analogy ever!" she argued. "And you're so wrong."

"No, I'm not," he stormed. "I'm more messed up than you and there's nothing you can do or say to make me change my mind." His voice had become that of a petulant child. He knew it too, and stuck out his tongue over his crooked bottom teeth. She ground her jaw. With this one around, she'd have to sleep in headgear.

"I had a nightmare so bad you dumped me in the shower!"

"I put my hand through a glass window!"

"My mom is dead!" Cam screeched shamelessly trying to guilt him into feeling sorry for her. He belligerently stepped closer, their feet actually occupying the same space but shifting around at a bare minimum of dancing. He raised his eyebrows but not his voice.

"My dad is dead!"

"My brother is dead!"

"My wife is dead!"

"But your daughters are alive!" Cole paused breathlessly, and Cam wondered if she had gone too far, crossed too many lines. He pursed his lips.

"Well shut up then," he roared. "We tied okay? Consolation prize?" She realized he was ribbing her, trying to make her laugh with his spectacle and she chuckled weakly, leaning into the warmth of his shoulder as they danced slowly, awkwardly as she tried to avoid stepping on his feet in her over swollen shoes. The other people were watching them, hoping for another dance. They looked away in embarrassment when they realized they were bickering. Cam almost smiled but she felt suddenly sloshy again. She leaned a little harder into him, and his body flexed against her weight to help hold her up. She smiled against his shirt and felt him smile into her hair. She liked how she could _feel_ his smile, rather than just see it.

"You're funny," she whispered into his clavicle.

"I have a problem," he whispered back. He was raising goosebumps on her neck and he knew it because she felt his hands tighten almost to bruising point. She actually liked that he was so rough on her. She had lived a tough life; why should someone treat her like glass?

"A trainwreck problem?"

"Worse," he rumbled. She stiffened in his arms. He rubbed her back soothingly.

"Well," she said with some composure. She clung to what little scraps of dignity she had managed to shield with his constant interference in her life. "What is it?"

"I think," he said quietly, "that I'm in love with you." She went rigid as she felt something molten sweep through her. His face suddenly became petrified in one position with fear; she could see the rejection, the hopelessness, but also the slightest bit of confirmed expectations flitting across the wrinkles around his eyes.

"Oh my God," she gasped. They had stopped dancing.

"I know," he said, using one of his hands to clasp his forehead. His fingers knotted in his thick hair and tugged thoughtfully. "I know," he said again, miserably.

"No," she gasped, tugging his arm, trying to convey everything she was unable to find words for at the moment. "No I…I agree. I just…Cole…" she looked him straight in the eyes then down between their bodies. "I think my water just broke."


	31. Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree

She was being rushed into the hospital in a wheelchair. Except for the occasional and excruciating contractions, Cam still felt remarkably silly. She knew, as both a doctor and as a member of the female race, that this baby wouldn't arrive for several hours yet. There was no reason not to just walk from the emergency room under her own power. Cole had almost crashed the car trying to get her here. She had at least managed to convince him to let her root through his car for an extra gym towel – she had settled for a burping rag – to sit on. He had refused her request of a change of clothes, desperate to get her to his hospital as fast as he could. He had honked almost incessantly as he weaved through traffic. "_Cole_," she had admonished, with a rising inflection, holding one hand over her stomach and one to the dry cleaning handle above her head. Only upon seeing her face white with pain and surprise at his third near miss with the car in front of him did he slow down.

"We need a doctor over here!" he had bellowed as he fairly carried her through the doors. His hands were bruising her arms and for once she resented it. She could _walk_ for God's sake. She told him so and he didn't even flash a smile. It was then she realized he was petrified; his face was chalkier than hers. She subsided and let him scream a little more at his surroundings while he still could.

"All right, all right," grumbled a nurse with blonde hair on the edge of white. She was slightly dumpy, in her early fifties and got the wheelchair for Cam at Cole's insistence.

"We need a doctor, not a wheelchair!" Cole had barked. The nurse had raised one silvering eyebrow.

"I believe _you're_ a doctor, Dr. Hart." Cole's lip had flitted above his teeth in a snarl.

"I'm fine," Cam had told them both. Someone's hand shoved her shoulders down regardless. And that was how she had come to be racing down the linoleum hallway towards the maternity ward. Cole's expensive leather shoes, probably ruined for all time now, squeaked angrily as he almost jogged alongside the wheelchair, effortlessly keeping up. She involuntarily glanced at the room number, just so she could remember it for the day she could tell the story, when everything would be funny. Nothing was now. Cole's face was rigid and set. She briefly wondered if they'd still be together. Brennan's words echoed back to her. _You are suggesting she may marry the man she's dating. _She blushed.

He paced in circles as she stood up, wincing against the pangs in her stomach she knew would only worsen. She ground her jaw so loudly she was surprised and a little hurt he didn't comment. He ran his hands through his hair, his head tilting that sharp 45 degree angle as he surveyed the room. Cam's heart sank when she realized what he was looking for: his place. He didn't know.

"Cole," she said softly. He heard it though as the nurse wheeled the chair to a nearby nurse's station and went to rifle in a closet. He stared at her.

"Please stay," she asked him. Begged him. Commanded him. His chest expanded hugely with relief, and he let out a blustery long breath. He didn't wear his coyote grin; he wasn't teasing her now. She had always thought of him as a boy, bouncing around, incorrigible. Now his face was as grim and lined as an old man's. His voice, when he spoke, was hoarse with despair; it made her want to cry for him.

"Promise you won't die?" he begged. She tried to smile and raised her eyebrows as she cynically quipped.

"Promise you won't look?" She knew that during the c-section that they'd have a sheet cordoning her head off from her surgery site. Not everyone was as good with blood and guts as she was.

He gave her a funny little broken grin. It reminded her of how honest he had been with her that late night on the couch, so many months before.

"Darling, I'll save _something_ to look forward to on our dates."

The nurse who had wheeled Cam into the room gave him a scandalized glance as she returned with a nightgown folded over her arm. "Dr. Hart!" Cam glanced at him in shock.

"You know her?"

"Oh, Kathy and I go back a _long_ time. She knows I'm just a damn foolish boy." Kathy chuckled as she helped Cam open the door to the bathroom and help her climb over the lip.

"And a good man," she offered unexpectedly. Cole blushed and Cam watched him helplessly as she shut the door to change into the nightgown she'd never want to see again.

* * *

"Oh my God!" Michelle rushed in, Booth hot on her heels. Cam saw him juggle his keys expertly back into his pocket; she sighed with relief that Booth drove. She had called Michelle and Seeley separately. Michelle had been awake, and Booth watching tv. She knew that because he had asked her three times what she needed before the words _I'm in labor_ had penetrated his baseball-induced stupor.

"I'm fine," Cam said wryly. "I'm scheduled for surgery at 1:30."

"_Surgery!_" her daughter shrieked in panic. Cole, who had taken off his coat, was now slumped tiredly in the armchair reserved specifically for husbands and boyfriends everywhere.

"Michelle, we've been over this," Cam almost laughed at her daughter's face. "I'm having a c-section remember? Because of the trouble I had before?"

"Oh." Michelle's relief was short lived.

"It'll all be over soon," Cam soothed her daughter, feeling as helpless as Michelle looked.

Booth grabbed her hand and rubbed the back of it worriedly.

"I called Hodgins," he assured her. "He and Ange are on their way."

"What about Brennan?" Seeley gave her a look that said _no duh_ in the plainest of terms. Cole even laughed weakly as he yawned. He had been in surgery, Cam realized, after late night pancakes and another round of dancing. His light grey shirt – expensive silk, as Cam knew from rubbing her face up against it not two hours before – was a little bit dirty, with faded out sweat stains from dancing and worry, and a half spilled drink. His eyes were ringed with dark, dark circles. Cam almost felt obligated to get out of bed to trade places with him, just so he could sleep. It was, after all, past midnight.

"When can you go home?" asked Michelle, frowning.

"I won't have the hours of labor like Angela – I don't even have to be fully dilated-"

"Ok!" interrupted Booth hastily, "Can we _not_ talk about-"

"Cam!" Brennan strode in with her usual leggy stride, her face wreathed in an excited smile. Angela and Hodgins were a step behind, their son Michael in his father's arms. Cam was pleasantly surprised; she had expected Hodgins to be outfitted with a horribly dorky baby backpack. He had opted for a staid electric blue rocket ship blanket.

"Hey," Angela crooned in concern. If anyone in the room looked more haggard than Cole, it was Angela. Cole at least had the practice of staying up. As if seeing baby Michael had reminded him of his own girls, Cole waved a finger at Cam and went into the hallway, pulling out his phone. Angela sank into the bed next to Cam as Cam groaned in pain.

"How are you? How's Toni?" Cam started at the name – it had been so long since anyone had used it.

"She's okay, we're both fine…" Cam stopped to gasp a little more. She nodded weakly. "Happy we're about to drugged." Angela laughed, nodding a little in envy. Michael began to cry.

"Sorry," apologized Angela. "It's the middle of the night so he's…"

"No, I'm glad you all came," Cam interrupted. And as soon as she said it, she was. She was glad they were all there. She wouldn't say it aloud, but she was nervous, bordering on scared. She had never done this, after all. "Michelle," she winced, and Michelle guiltily dropped her hand again, having wrung it back to bloodless.

"So you're ok?" nodded Hodgins encouragingly. Cam felt her face seize up. His froze in concern. Cam couldn't swallow the outraged yell of pain she felt wrack her entire midsection. She clutched both arms to it in panic.

"I think she's ready," called Kathy, striding in with a needle five inches long.

* * *

Being given an epidural didn't smother Cam's initial flood of panic that inundated her when her bed from the maternity ward was rolled out, her friends trailing behind her in a congregation. She clutched Cole's hand so tightly she was sure he was going to yell. In opposition, however, he looked as if he were going to faint. She wished he would lie down. She almost got up to give him her spot, before she remembered why she was there at all. Her feet were nice and numb, a wonderful change from the pulsing throb she had become used to whenever she lay level with them. Michelle had opted to come with, to Cam's surprise. She had promised she would stand far away, in a corner, "away from the bloody end," she assured Cam, and wait. "I don't want to miss a second," she had told her, and that was that.

The rest of the lab was banished to the waiting room. Angela had already left a little earlier to breast feed Michael and rock him to sleep. Cam swallowed at the swinging doors but it turned out all of her half horrified, fantastical expectations were for nothing. There was an entire separate room for c-sections and maternity based surgeries, so the main OR that she had been dreading, complete with endless monitors, bags of blood, dopamine and tables of surgical tools was no where to be found. There was only one small table with the usual implements of scalpels, ten blades and lower, a suture kit, and some general anesthesia to greet her. She knew, scientifically, the rest of the medication and instruments could be gathered at a moment's notice, but she was forcefully glad she didn't have to see it.

"Okay," beamed her OB/GYN. She was already gloved up and masked. Cam was left alone for a moment while Michelle and Cole were similarly outfitted. She concentrated on her doctor for the few seconds it took. Cam more than suspected that the obstetrician was feigning joy for being in the middle of a delivery at half past one in the morning. She briefly considered telling her friends to go home and sleep. She figured that if they really desired, they would figure it out on their own. She knew, without a doubt, they would all still be there when this was over, half asleep in the world's most uncomfortable chairs.

She realized they were beginning. She hardly felt a thing but she could see the glint of the scalpel catching the cruel fluorescents. Cole locked his gaze on her face with a desperation than emanated from him with such clarity, Cam felt it would be impossible to miss his discomfort even if she had been even more drugged than she was.

"Are you okay?" she whispered, and stiffened when out of the corner of her eye, saw the doctor lean down, glasses and scrub cap on. Cam knew even if she couldn't feel it, that the incision was being made behind the blue tent that extended from her chest down. She managed to feel vaguely embarrassed she was half naked, but realized that to this crowd, the wallpaper would be more interesting.

Cole quirked a smile.

"I was about to ask you the same question." Cam craned her head up and around to where Michelle was standing, scared witless, but bravely remaining, and smiled a little sloppily. The drugs made her very tired. Even though her body pushed, it was more of an inconvenience than the animal instinct she had felt before her epidural. Michelle nodded at her.

"I'm okay," she managed, just above a whisper. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay," Cam squeaked. She jerked her hand in Cole's grip. She felt _something_ deep down…and it wasn't pleasant.

"You're more than okay angel," Cole said unexpectedly. His voice was ragged, threadbare. He looked like a man who was telling his daughter it would be all right when a stranger held a gun to her head. He was offering every last bit of himself. Cam wondered who he saw in front of him now; if she was even there. Maybe he was just giving everything he should have said to Jade to her. She felt her face crumple.

Even in his desperate despair, he could read her like she read lab charts.

"I know who you are," he rumbled to her, so only she could hear. For some reason, her heart monitor and the constant narrating of the OB/GYN talking to her about what was going on seemed very distant.

"I want you to know," Cam swallowed but stopped breathing for a moment, face frozen in the last vowel. Cole literally whimpered but followed her gaze.

"I'm turning her now; she's tangled up in the abruption." The obstetrician's voice was calm. Cam was unaware of anything but her voice now. She couldn't see over the blue sheet. She wondered if the baby was out. She couldn't feel it. She couldn't _see_ anything. Suddenly she loathed the sheet. Surely the it was out…if it was out, why wasn't it crying?

_Why isn't it crying?_ She realized suddenly with a shock of ugliness, she should have named it something else. If names were fated, she had just saddled this infant with a legacy of tragedy.

"Don't worry Cam," her doctor soothed suddenly, "I'm pulling her out now." There was a sudden flurry of unexpected motion. Cam flinched more at that then any feeling on her part. Two nurses stepped forward. Another cleared a space. There was something wet, something ugly and reddish, carried away.

Cam was only aware of hands, not of her doctor placing the rest of the placenta in a bowl held politely out to her by another nurse. Someone was holding a staple gun. She knew it was to staple her skin back together. Someone was holding a dropper pipet, the kind they put in infants' noses. A blanket was being unfurled. It looked cheap, that much she could grasp. Michelle had moved forward to resume her bloodless hold. Cole's own hands were bruising into one of her shoulders, shaking her slightly, as if she were the winning coach of a football team. Cam still held her breath.

She cried.

Toni drew another breath, a deeper one, and another thin little wail filled the room.

Cam cried.

"Would you like to hold her?" the nurse offered, holding a swaddled _thing_ that looked hardly like a baby at all. Cam didn't notice; she thought it was the most beautiful newborn on earth. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak through the tears but realized what a silly question that was. _Would I like to hold her?_ she thought to herself scathingly.

She held her new daughter's warm little bundle as if she were as breakable as glass, or as fragile as sugar. Cole immediately pushed himself away, giving her room. Michelle was crying. Cam realized her arms were tired, so tired in fact, she was afraid of dropping her. But she had to say it.

"Hi Toni," she whispered to the little crease of closed eyelids. "Hi."

"I can take her," the nurse at her side instantly, she seemed to realize as Cam did that she was drugged.

"Can I hold her?" Michelle asked in a hushed whisper, although the rest of the surgery room was still bleeping noisily.

"Of course," Cam said in exhaustion. She closed her eyes for a moment, but before she allowed herself to drift off to sleep she popped her eyes open again. "Cole?"

"I'm here doll," he said, his voice hoarse. He was crying too. Openly. She held her arms out weakly for a hug. He looked shocked.

"I'm not a doll," she chided back, with the last of her voice. He was still staring at her arms as if he had never seen the gesture before. She wished he would make up his mind; her arms were leaden. "It's a me hug," she whispered, her voice as hoarse as his, as if she had been screaming the whole time. "Take it. It's a commodity. I never hug."

He gently leaned over her and squeezed her as softly as she had held her daughter.

"Thank you for being here," she whispered. He leaned back a little and shuddered a laugh.

"Thanks for not dying."

"Not on my watch," the OB offered unexpectedly. The rest of the room broke out into titters, and Cam blushed, or tried to, realizing that their little scene had been quite loud.

"Do you want to go tell them?" Cam asked him with half a smile.

"You'll want something to tell them," the doctor said with a shake of her head. Cam realized she had been involuntarily flinching as she heard a stapler close over and over. The physician looked up, exhausted but done. She ungloved a bloody mess and pointed at a nurse who smeared some clear gel along Cam's abdomen. The sheet was finally lowered.

"Your daughter is seven pounds, four ounces."

"And she's twenty one inches exactly," another nurse chimed in.

"I'll tell them," Michelle suddenly beamed, still cradling Toni. She awkwardly sidled back to Cam, not wanting to lift her feet. The tiny baby drowsed comfortably, its battle finally over.

"Will you take her?" Cam asked Cole, gesturing slightly, her arms too heavy to lift.

Cole swallowed but reverently took her daughter in his arms. He looked far more natural than Cam did. She had to wonder if she was doing it right, just as if she had to wonder if she hugged Felicia the right way while she comforted her.

Michelle left through the swinging doors, stopping only to strip off her hospital scrubs.

"A crib will be delivered to your room Ms. Saroyan," another nurse said quietly. Cam realized it must be very late now. She didn't bother to correct the appellation.

"When's her birthday?" she asked suddenly, as someone appeared at her side to help move her from one bed to another, a clean nightgown in hand.

"She was born at exactly 2:16 am," a nurse smiled at her. "On Saturday, March fourth."

"It's the fourth?" Cam asked in bewilderment. She lifted her arms obediently to be changed. Her entire body from her spinal cord down was still paralyzed. She was disgusted when she saw the suture lines, and looked away, nauseated. She saw that Cole had politely turned his back, cooing to Toni in his arms.

Someone lifted her from bed to bed, slinging her down somewhat gently. She landed on the pillow with relief so strong, she was afraid she was going to fall asleep then and there. The rhythmic clacking of the wheels down the hallway back to her room didn't help any. She passed a clock and stared at the hands until analog time made sense to her again after living in the digital age of the Jeffersonian so long. It was almost 3:00. Stitching up (or stapling), and cleaning up had taken longer than she had expected. She felt only relief being rolled back into her room.

Someone helped to elevate her bed into a sitting position. Cam almost cried at the sharp pain that lanced through her drug induced haze. She had to remind herself that her entire abdominal muscles had been sliced through in order to deliver Toni. She wouldn't be doing anything for a very long time. She opened her eyes wide, trying to stay awake. She hadn't finished filling out her maternity leave paperwork for the Jeffersonian. No doubt Brennan would have something to say about that.

She nodded at Cole and tried to position her arms enough so that most of their weight was braced against her body. He gently laid Toni in her arms. She only weighed seven pounds, but Cam felt as if he had laid an anvil on her. Still, her fingers curled convulsively into the blanket – she had been right, it _was_ cheap – and smiled sleepily at him.

"Okay, they can come in." Cole didn't move. He only beckoned through the doorway where a small troop of people hovered anxiously.

"Hi," cooed Angela, coming in first. Her son was back with his father, slumbering but turning his head at the commotion.

"How are you feeling-" started Brennan, but her breath was arrested at the sight of tiny Toni, resplendent in her little pink hat, snuggled into Cam's arms. "She's beautiful," sighed Brennan, and Cam preened a little. Brennan never said anything that wasn't true.

"You did good," Booth grunted, but then broke into a craggy smile. "You did great."

"Wow," Hodgins managed. "Wow."

"Can I hold her?" Michelle begged. Cam nodded carefully, afraid she would break. Cole rescued her from the awkward admission that she didn't have the upper body strength to hand Michelle her sister, and scooped Toni up out of her arms. She was relatively unfussy. She hardly made any sound. Michelle took her back reverently, cooing into her still shuttered eyes. Almost everyone flocked to her.

Someone was stroking her hair. It felt nice.

"You're an angel," the voice murmured. The last thing she saw was Michael poking rubbery baby fingers in curiosity towards Toni's face. A tiny fist bumped another one.

It was enough.


	32. No Ifs and Buts About It

"Hello?" the voice was whispered and breathy.

"Will you put the baby down for five seconds so we can have a honest to God conversation?" Cam frowned in the phone; his voice was causing Toni to toss restlessly. Although it had been four and a half weeks, Cam still found herself sitting down, fatigued from new motherhood and also from her aching abdominal muscles as if she had the worst crunch burn that lasted for weeks. It didn't hurt while lounging or sitting still. But shifting her weight, trying to get up, or taking the stairs were all painful and glacial experiences.

"She's sleeping," she whispered again.

"Are you?" Cole asked sarcastically.

"I'm okay."

"Stop saying that."

"Fine I'm exhausted, are you happy?"

"We promised no ok's and no I'm tired's."

"That's going to be difficult."

"You're pretty difficult."

"You think I'm high maintenance," she teased.

"Oh you know you're high maintenance."

"Well can I call you back? I'm going to put her down and I still need two hands."

"Got it. Call back in five."

She hung up, not intending to call back in five minutes, but happy to settle Toni down into her crib. She felt guilty as she hung, rather clung, onto the mahogany bars of the crib that Cole built. She fell onto her bed and called him back out of guilt, still wincing at the sharp fire through her lower abdomen as she thickly lifted her leaden feet to swing them on top of the coverlet

"You called!" He sounded more gleeful than she had expected, making her smile tiredly. She couldn't have turned him down after running her hands over the crib he had built for her daughter.

"You think so little of me?" she teased.

"On the contrary, I expected you to be dead asleep."

"What do you want?"

"That's the response I get? We haven't seen each other in three weeks, and I get 'what do you want?' I should have thought that'd be obvious."

"Kill me," groaned Cam.

"Next best thing. I called Sally."

"What?" Cam shot forward in bed but it hurt her so viscerally she cried out more than spoke.

"You okay angel?" Cole sputtered quickly, concern Crayola coloring his voice.

"Fine," she gasped.

"No I'm fines!" Cole reprimanded, his voice still sharp with concern.

"You've never had a c-section. I'm fine."

"Not fine, you're sliced."

"Yes fine – I mean okay. I mean – you know what I mean."

"Sally," Cole reminded her. She scowled into the phone, grinding her jaw.

"What is going on?"

"Let's go out."

"I'm tired."

"No I'm tireds," he reminded her again. She scowled more darkly.

"Fine, I don't want to."

"You do want to, you just don't know it yet."

"How does that make sense?"

"It does. I've been where you are. She's your whole life – the rest of it, anyway." His voice trailed off sadly and Cam suspected he was playing it up as a ploy for her sympathy. Damn him. It worked.

"I'm exhausted," she prevaricated.

"It's been weeks. You need to go out. You're going to become stir crazy."

"I don't know how I feel about-"

"Sally is the best," barked Cole sharply. Cam winced.

"I know, but-"

"No buts. She's the best. I know you're a new mom. Let Michelle stay if you're worried."

"Okay… no! Not okay. We aren't going."

"Too bad, I'm outside."

"What!" Cam heaved herself to a sitting position, swinging her feet over the side of the bed, balancing her hand on the sheets as she achingly pushed herself up. She peered out of her bedroom window. If she pressed her face against the glass just right, she could see down the driveway. It was empty. "No you're not!"

"You got up and looked just for me?" Cole's voice was thick with fake flattery. "That's sweet. Well. Now you're up – brush your hair. Shower. Get dressed."

"It's not like I'm a child," she griped.

"Oh yeah?" he challenged. "When was the last time you showered?"

"I-" Cam began and stopped. When was it? She was mortified to think it was probably two days ago. Maybe Cole was right. No! Damn it. That was how he always won: inserting that sliver of doubt.

"That's what I thought," Cole said smugly.

"But who will watch her when I shower?" Cam panicked. "Michelle's not home."

"All right, all right, I'll come over before Sally. You don't need to beg. I'll help you shower." His voice was dark with hardly veiled innuendo.

"I'll be fine," she said quickly, glancing around her disgusting house.

"All right angel," he drawled. "I'm coming over in an hour and a half. Sally will be with me. Okay?"

"Okay," Cam told him quickly. She looked down at the quiet baby in her arms – quiet now at least – "Mommy's going to try something new," she told her.

* * *

The door swung open with such sharp force Cole had to wonder if Cam hadn't been waiting, crouched predatorily behind the door, for her first contact with human kind.

"You look-" he beamed, ready to tell her she looked awful, but his eyebrows went up instead. Despite her coffee black rings under her matching black eyes, Cam was dressed with all her usual flawless grace that Cole had yet to become accustomed to. His tongue swelled up in his mouth when he caught sight of the heels. Cam preened. She had decided to buy the monolo blancs all those months ago and even though her abdomen was killing her, she knew she looked fabulous. She had dropped twelve pounds in the three weeks – seven of which were Toni – and had regained the ability to wear one of her painted on dresses again. She knew she didn't look as good as she usually did in them, but she also knew Cole had never seen her looking better.

"That dress-" he stumbled instead, "is red," he finished lamely. Red was only mildly correct. The scarlet skin tight dress had sleeves, and was appropriate for work, but it was missing most of its back, as Cole discovered as she turned around to let him, and the elderly Chinese woman behind him, inside. Cole's face was fuchsia. Cam preened.

She realized that they were both holding baby carriers – of course he had brought his girls – and Sally was carrying a folded up playpen and a diaper bag.

"Sally," Cam said in gratitude, "I can't tell you how much I appreciate this – really – I-" but Sally waved her off.

"Where is your baby?"

"She's sleeping."

"How'd you solve the showering problem?" Cole asked with eyebrows raised. Cam fought a smile as it worked across her face. "I took her with me." Cole's jaw dropped.

"You did not." Cam nodded.

"There was no way I was leaving her by herself – God she's four weeks old – so I just…held her up under the spray."

"How'd she do?" he grinned. Cam smiled back, unguarded for the first time in a long time.

"She was wonderful. Fussed at first but then enjoyed it I think. So now she's powdered, changed, and sleeping. You shouldn't have any trouble," she said, addressing Sally, "since she's so young, she doesn't do much but eat and sleep – at all the wrong times," she said wryly. For once, the stoic woman cracked a smile.

"Go," she urged. "I can handle it here."

Cole gallantly offered her an arm. She threaded hers through it with a smile.

"Where to?" she asked. He smiled and held the door.

* * *

"Oh my God," Cam said softly, as he led her down the long walk of the mall. She was adroit in her heels but kept stumbling as she looked up at the clear sunny sky. The sun was just beginning to set, gilding every single pink white blossom on the cherry trees.

"It's the first week of the Cherry Blossom Festival," Cole told her with a charming little boy's smile. "I thought you'd want to go." They passed a bright carousel and Cam dragged him on it while he took pictures of her, and she of him, riding horses much too small for either. Cole hunched up his knees and pretended to whip his horse forward, a jockey ten inches too tall and seemingly ten feet too big for the miniature carousel horse. Cam flaunted her heels as she lounged on her horse, making silly faces as Cole clucked his approval. He bought her cotton candy when they got off. She hadn't had cotton candy since she was a teenager. She was happy to note the slightly strange sugary confection tasted exactly the same as she remembered.

As they meandered along down the mall, they stopped at various places. They dined in the Smithsonian red castle with an impressive a marble floor of a café. They perused the African art gallery standing outside under even more cherry blossom trees and they finally ended up, sitting legs crossed, or rather tucked in Cam's case, on the end of the mall, listening to music and staring up as the moon rose and slipped pale beams over the cherry trees. The fragrance slid through the onlookers, as intoxicating as anything Cam had ever known. From a bag Cole had bought but Cam hadn't seen, Cole brought out a bottle of wine and Cam laughed. He knew how much she loved wine, and how she had missed it. She turned the label over to read it in the pale light and looked up accusingly.

"Where did you get this?"

"From the market we passed."

"How did you know it was my favorite?"

"I saw it in the trash a long time ago. Wrote down the label." Cam flushed hotly. It was unnerving that he had calculated that they would still be together months later.

"Thank you," she said softly, blushing even in the darkness with her thought. She wasn't expecting the hot breath on her tongue and the kiss that accompanied it. She almost slipped backwards onto the grass, but his strong arm caught her and held her up, an iron bar against her weak will. Cam couldn't help but think that she was glad she had shaved.

"I don't have any glasses," came Cole's rough voice. It was growing darker despite the moonlight, and they were far away from any lights. Cam blushed more hotly at what had run delicately through her mind, leaving an insatiable appetite to follow. She had to remind herself it was leftover hormones from her pregnancy. Her period hadn't even come back yet.

"Do you have a bottle opener?" Cam asked, giggling hopelessly at the situation she found herself in. It was doubly funny because of her internal struggles that Cole was, thankfully, completely unaware of.

"On my keys," he rumbled before digging through his pockets to pull them out with a soft click and a jingle.

Cam found herself slipping off one shoe with the toe of the other, and then repeating the process by hooking it with her finger. She froze in agony for a moment, her abdomen hurting her, though the stitches had been taken out and it was newly scarred. She knew though that it was not so healed on the inside. The walking had exhausted her, though they hadn't walked very far. She liked sitting, almost lounging on the grass, far away from any onlookers. Almost far enough away that the music was just a faint tinkling of background noise. It was restful without having to get up and get the baby every few minutes – or in her case – just resort to holding the baby to avoid the unnecessary pain.

There was the unmistakable sound of paper tearing and of a cork unstopping itself from a bottle. She felt Cole hand the wine to her more than saw him. She pulled him closer both out of a selfish desire she couldn't have, and out of necessity to help use his bodyweight to keep in the sitting position. Without back support, she was depressed to realize how little strength she had.

He was more than happy to comply and she could feel his heat radiating off of him through his shirt, through her dress and through her skin. She stretched against him as she took the wine, and then foolishly, like teenagers sneaking their first drink, put it to her lips. She had meant to be polite, but the fragrance and taste of her favorite boquet forced her to take a long pull.

Cole chuckled. She realized they had hardly spoken. She offered it back to him and he drank some as well.

"What were you like as a child?" she asked into the quiet as they stared up above them at the canopy of interlacing white blossoms, a china pattern overlaying the stars. He was silent a moment before she could feel him shrug. She drank some as she waited.

"Not much different, I guess." He said quietly. Cam laughed.

"I can believe it. I bet you broke all the girl's hearts."

"Not so much in high school. I liked science too much. I played soccer, not football." He stopped abruptly when he felt Cam stiffen before she spun her head around on his shoulder to glare incredulously up at him.

"You played soccer? Were you any good?"

"Don't tell me _you_ played soccer doll. How'd you make the cut?" He waved a hand over her head, emphasizing the word _cut_. She ground her teeth but it only made him laugh when she realized he could feel it in his collarbone. She flapped at him to go on as he thoughtfully sipped their wine.

"I played street soccer," she informed him primly. But she sighed, suddenly tired. He stroked her hair both reassuringly and caressingly. It reminded her of when he had held her as she slept in the hospital. She smiled and reached back for the wine.

"I did better at Georgetown. I met Jade," his voice colored with a cloudy emotion before clearing. "I was more popular. Pre med. It meant I studied hard and partied hard. How about you? What were you like in college?"

"Well," Cam picked a cuticle before handing the wine back, unwilling to do this. Their lives had been very, very different. "I went to community college," she started unwillingly. She realized his sudden stillness was both out of surprise and out of support. She swallowed some, taking courage from the blossoming warmth inside that was partially because of the wine.

"I needed to go part time, since I didn't go to college right away. There was too much –" she trailed off. So much had happened: her mother had suddenly died, there was still the aftermath of Tony and her father's broken disregard for his remaining girls, not to mention Felicia's inconsolable anguish at her mother's abrupt death. Cam had run out on her family as surely as Booth's father had on his own. She had left because it was too broken to stay. She drew a breath, skipping that and continued, "I became a cop. A rookie. I joined the force when I was 19. It was right around the time I met Booth. I was a cop by day, and a student by night. It took me five years to finish."

"Of course," Cole murmured understandingly. He hadn't needed to hear about her turmoil. He had read her file. He could guess.

"And then I went to medical school. Only, I really, really hated it. All the other people were intolerable." She paused, mortified, but Cole only chuckled in the darkness, nodding his head against hers as he passed back the wine. "So I became a coroner in New York. There weren't a lot of girls in the field. Mostly old men with a penchant for death. Doctors who had retired from their high stress jobs but who still needed the money or the routine. But I didn't mind the autopsies…" she trailed off. "Lots of people I knew had died. I figured the people on my table couldn't help being dead. And I still got to work with the Bronx homicide department, only this time on the other end of the line." She trailed off, shaking her head clear of memories of Mayra and Sergio. "I worked there for a couple years. They made me federal coroner, I think by default since everyone else was so old, or about to die." Cole actually laughed a loud, rich laugh.

"I'm sure there was more to it than that," he consoled her. Cam blushed again. She knew she was good at her job.

"So why a neurosurgeon?" she asked into the lull. He rocked her gently as his face crinkled into a smile against her hair.

"I figured, if I was going to be a doctor, I was going to get paid for it." She pulled away and tried to smack him but he evaded her weak assault. She collapsed back against him, chuckling tiredly. She reached for the wine. It was empty.

"You drank it all," she scolded.

"_I_ drank it all?" he scoffed. He frowned in the darkness at her, his face all caverns and shadows. "You had most of it."

"No, I'm pretty sure you had three quarters of it."

"No way!"

"Well too bad, there's no way to tell."

"Let me see," Cole growled and kissed her. She went easily beneath him, folding to the ground like a crushed flower. His tongue snaked against her teeth, over the ridges of the roof of her mouth to the back of her throat. He pulled off, panting, his arms supporting all but the tiniest amount of weight out of courtesy. She wrinkled her nose at him.

"What's the diagnoses doctor?" she mocked him. He ran his tongue lightly over her left collarbone. She shivered.

"You definitely drank it all," he accused.

"I want a second opinion!" she teased. He acquiesced her.

Cam wasn't drunk, but she had distinct trouble remembering when they had started taking off their clothes. His shirt was all the way unbuttoned, and he had her dress down around her waist. She could hardly find the dignity to be scandalized. They were under trees. There was hardly a sound except the hot pants of their breath, and Cam had to wonder, staring up at the white blossoms with their heady fragrance, if this was strictly legal.

She smiled fiendishly.

Cole rose to the challenge.


	33. Tossing The Baby Out With The Bath Water

**Bam! Two in one day. You're welcome.**

* * *

"Can you go to jail for having sex on the national mall?"

Angela smiled as she flicked a paintbrush expertly and then paused to study the effect. She didn't look up. "Why? Did you see someone?" Cam paused, not sure how to answer the question and felt herself twisting her feet like a little girl. Angela looked up, eyebrows raised in the silence of an innocuous question and her face lit up with a fiendish glow.

"Sort of?" Cam asked hopelessly, knowing even before she finished Angela knew. It really hadn't been a secret but Angela's devilish delight both excited and terrified her.

"Oh. My. God." Angela squealed, paintbrush clattering to the floor. "How did this happen? When did it happen? Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!"

"Oh my God what?" Booth asked in amusement as he sauntered through the door. Angela scurried over and smacked him, hard, with a hand.

"Out!" she screeched. "Out! Girl talk! Out!" Cam was doubled over, helplessly consumed with laughter at Booth's face.

"I want to know," he whined.

"Out!" Angela barked at him. He went.

"Tell me," Angela said, panting slightly from her exertion as she did her typical gesture of grabbing Cam's arm so hard the nails bit into her skin. Cam winced and Angela loosened her hold apologetically.

"Last night. It just happened," she blurted and the two dissolved into helpless laughter. It was such a typical answer to sex.

"It always does," Angela laughed throatily. Somewhere, a baby started to cry. In exasperation, both women turned as one. Angela shook her head decisively.

"No. That's Michael. Let me." She swept away, one finger still held upwards as if to say "stay" with all the severity to a border collie.

Cam breathed a huge sigh and stretched. She was _sore_. Both from Cole's ministrations and her scar. She winced and sank back down into a chair. She was wearing lower heels and another dress today, happy to be back in her usual attire. She and Angela, both on maternity leave, were still lingering about the lab. They had converted Angela's office into a nursery. Angela wanted to be close to Hodgins so that their son would know his father in the first eight weeks, and Cam had happily agreed to move her own nursery to the lab for the company instead of, as Cole had aptly described, becoming stir crazy from being a shut in for so long. Besides, there probably wasn't any place more sterilized on earth than the lab.

The two babies - Toni carefully cushioned into a lying position padded with pillows - lay in a playpen with a myriad of criss crossing quilts lying about. There were a few toys that Michael would play listlessly with if he could ever figure out his motor skills by pushing them around. Mostly the two just started at the ceiling, and at each other, with a sort of insatiable curiosity. Toni's skin, although a few shades darker than her playmate's, had turned a flush tan color with nice rosy cheeks and black hair. She had the non-colored eyes most babies were born with, a murky brown-blue-green that hadn't yet decided on a color. Cam was almost positive they would be brown, though she couldn't recall what the father's had looked like.

Most of the time she lay about looking like a tiny cherubic angel. Cam thought there had never been a prettier baby and she wasn't just partial because it was her own. Michael, although fine looking himself, was very fat and very bald. Cam preened that her daughter was unfussy and unmessy.

Angela came back bouncing Michael on a hip as he angrily scrubbed his face against her shoulder. She soothed him and lay his head over her collarbone while his tiny rubbery hands flailed over her back before drooping in exhaustion. Within moments he was asleep.

"So," Angela said, easing onto the couch with her voice lowered but no less intense. "Tell me everything."

Cam briefly outlined their date, to Angela's squeals of excitement which she muffled when Michael began to toss.

"And then…" she egged, eyebrows wiggling. Cam blushed, glad of her latte skin.

"And then he bought a bottle of wine. There were no glasses…so we just shared it…and the moon was up…and there was music…and we were under some trees…" Cam knew, even with her darker skin tone, she was blushing enough for Angela to notice now. In return, however, Angela's face was aglow with delight at her discomfiture.

"Ah drunk with the moonlight and the wine. How very romantic."

"Can I please come back in?" Booth asked plaintively from the doorway. Cam spun around, still flushed, to see his wicked little grin that didn't match his petulant voice.

"How long have you been standing there?"

His grin grew. Her blush darkened.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you it was not polite to eavesdrop?"

"No," he said cheekily.

"Well didn't Hank?" she asked peevishly. He had the grace to look chagrined, but not enough to leave. He swept into the room and past the two women to the playpen.

"Hello," he crooned. "Uncle Booth is here to see you." Toni burbled – unfairly in Cam's opinion – in delight as he swept her up over his head. Despite her utter faith in Booth, her heart still fell into her mouth at the dizzying heights.

"Stop that," she chided him with no heart. He ignored her. Perfect.

"So," he said in a casual voice. "You and doctor man getting it on?"

"Are you going to arrest me officer?" she batted her eyelashes but scowled.

"For what?" Angela's eyebrows went up.

"You didn't hear? For having sex under the cherry blossoms." Booth nearly dropped the baby. He hastily handed her to Cam. Luckily, Toni wasn't old enough to understand the difference between falling and being handled, and she still smiled in a way that suggested she might need a change soon enough.

"You had sex on the _National Mall?_" he spluttered. Cam looked bewildered.

"You were standing right there!"

"Not when you said that!"

"What's the big deal?" asked Angela with a shrug.

"You had sex in public!" spluttered Booth.

"I told you he was prudish about the subject," came a new voice. Brennan glided in. Cam dropped her face in her hands. What had started out as a conversation with Angela could hardly be kept from the rest of the lab.

"I came to see my metaphorical nephew." She held out her hands for Michael.

"It's hardly metaphorical," Angela sniffed.

"Well I love him like a nephew, so that makes it true," Brennan shrugged the baby onto her own hip. She carefully avoided looking at Booth. "But we are not, actually, blood related."

"It doesn't matter. You're still his Auntie Bones," beamed Booth. She wrinkled her nose in annoyance at him before sticking her fingers in front of Michael's face and wiggling them.

"Phalanges!"

"So," Angela squirmed. "Did you have _fun?_" Cam smiled but winced as she leaned forward. She whimpered helplessly and gestured at Booth.

"Can you hand me that water? I am so _sore_."

"Didn't want to know that!" Booth said loudly. "So I'm leaving." He tossed the water bottle at Cam and strode out. There was silence until he sheepishly came back in, still holding her daughter.

"I…uh…forgot something," he said, with what little dignity he could muster. "Where do you want her?"

"I'll take her," Cam said quietly to relieve him. He grinned and scratched his ear.

"Right. I'll just…be going. I'll swing by later. Ok?"

"I'll be here," she called after him as he frantically escaped the estrogen party.

Brennan sank down on the couch next to her and Angela.

"So," she said with a smirk, "how was breaking the law?" Angela laughed and lifted her eyebrows.

"And when are you going to do it again?"

* * *

The tiny slurping noises were too cute. Cam wrinkled her nose at Toni. It was a little after five o'clock on a Friday night, so the lab had emptied out within seconds of it turning the hour. Angela had packed up her fussy boy, and her son too, and they had gone to the park. Brennan had gone with them to help push the stroller while Hodgins and Angela spent some quality time with each other.

Cam was left in the still assembled 'nursery' that was Angela's office, holding a tiny bottle up to Toni's tinier mouth as she sucked it down with the regularity of a chugging steam engine. Cam had to marvel at her prowess. She certainly couldn't imagine draining a bottle without stopping. Not that that had stopped her last night. She blushed while memorizing the curves of Toni's face. She was just about to fall into a spiral of adoration and possibly weeping, when a voice echoed in the empty atrium.

"Hello? Anyone home?"

"In here," Cam called back. Well, bellowed back. Toni, half asleep, didn't seem to mind Cam's loudness, so long as she didn't interrupt her feeding.

She shifted her weight so that Toni was propped up a little bit more and wouldn't choke and looked up at the shadow in the doorway, expecting Booth. Her eyebrows went up.

"Sergio." He didn't say anything back. His eyes were arrested by the baby in her arms.

"You had your baby," he said softly instead, as if talking very quietly would somehow make Toni less of an infant.

"I did. This is Madison Antoinette. We call her Toni. Want to hold her?"

"I don't know," he immediately prevaricated, backing up a couple of steps.

"Come on," she said with a smile. "Sit down. You can feed her for a while. My arms get tired."

"Okay," he said dubiously. "If your arms get tired."

He sank down on the couch, obviously ill at ease. Cam knew before she asked why he was so uncomfortable.

"Have you ever held a baby before?" His shoulders immediately tensed up like he was going to scoff it off, but he deliberately eased them down in favor of being cautious.

"No," he confessed.

"It's not hard," she soothed him, carefully depositing Toni into his awkwardly held arms. "Yeah, like that. Just like that. Okay. Support the head." Toni, upon noticing there was no milk squirting into her mouth, immediately began to fuss. Sergio panicked, trying to thrust his curved arms back at Cam. Cam calmed him.

"No sudden moves," she chided him, using cop language so he'd feel more at home. He cracked a sideways smile. "All she wants is this. Now lean her up against your body. That's it. Okay. Here use this hand to feed her." Once Sergio had put the rubber nipple against Toni's chin she immediately and greedily began to suck once more, her tiny grunts of contentment sounding like the purring of a kitten.

"Díos mío," Sergio whispered. My God.

"She's really easy to get along with now," Cam nodded. "Just wait until she's about six months. Or when she's sixteen. She won't be so cute."

"Yes she will," Sergio said softly. There were several seconds of silence before Sergio cleared his throat and continued. Cam knew it was because he was struggling with the fact he'd never be anyone's biological uncle. "She's so beautiful Camille. You did real good."

"Very well," she corrected him, bumping a shoulder against his. He flashed her a grin, his eyes still entranced by the tiny human in his arms. She smiled and flopped back, glad of the reprieve of holding herself up.

"So what brings you to my neck of the woods, all the way from New York? It's a long hike."

"Just wanted to say thanks," Sergio grunted, still staring at her daughter. "You were right. We caught the guy. I felt like we didn't see much of each other. Just that hour. I figured, hey, I can spare a weekend in DC. Saved up a little cash-"

"Don't be silly," she shrugged against the cushions. "You can stay with me. You just had to ask." Sergio smiled but shook his head. They both knew he never would have.

"You doing okay?" he asked her. She shrugged again.

"I was…okay for a long time. But now I'm better." She stared at her daughter with the younger brother of her dead best friend. She unconsciously echoed Cole's words. "She made me better."

"So that's the cure for the world, huh?" Sergio mocked gently. "Have a baby? Just pop out one of these and you're all free?"

"Nah," Cam sighed. "It was a lot of work. Is a lot of work. Will always be a lot of work. But…I dunno." She had sloped back into talking more like him so she didn't feel as pretentious. They were after all, from the same neighborhood. "I have a boyfriend now-"

"Oh you do, do ya?" Sergio teased. "This his?" Cam shook her head ruefully. He smacked her thigh and wiggled his eyebrows. Toni grunted in anger when the bottle fell. He snatched it back up in apology.

"Shut up," she sighed. "What about you, doing okay?"

"Homicide is never okay. But yeah – the guys and I get along. I'm pretty young, but the captain's all right. It was better than joining the army."

"Depends on how you look at it," said Booth, leaning in from the doorway. Cam gestured him to come in. His eyes snagged on Sergio feeding Toni but he didn't say anything.

"Have a seat Sergeant," she mocked.

"This him?" Sergio asked. "This the guy you're seeing?" They both started objecting at the same time, and so vehemently, Sergio started laughing.

"Okay, okay. Sorry I asked."

"He's with someone else," she explained. Booth jerked a thumb at her.

"So is she."

"He's a doctor," Cam sighed, relenting to Sergio's unspoken grilling. Sergio nodded with a smug smile. Cam groaned; there was no reasoning with men.

"Can I?" Booth asked reverently. Cam gestured and Sergio gingerly let Booth take her from his arms.

"Isn't she beautiful?" Sergio asked in a hushed whisper. Toni was fading fast now that she was sated. Booth gently patted her over his shoulder. She burped a tiny funny little burp. He let her down against his heart and held her there as she fell asleep.

"She's perfect," Booth sighed, staring down at her. Cam smiled a tired, happy smile.

"I haven't seen you around," she accused.

"Haven't seen me?" gasped Booth in mock outrage. "You're the one on maternity leave."

"You know where I live," she shot back, and Booth had the grace to look embarrassed.

"I should have brought food or something," he agreed. Cam felt like an ass.

"No. No – I didn't mean –"

"I didn't bring you anything for her either-" Sergio said in mortification. He bounded up from his seat. "I'll go out – I'll come back and-"

"No- please sit," she huffed. "Both of you. It's fine. I don't need gifts. I'm fine." She realized too late that the taboo Cole had set in place was broken.

"I'm not," said a tiny voice. Cam felt her eyebrows disappear into her hairline. The voice was too high for either of the men, but she checked them both in case. She swung back to the doorway, squirming from the voluptuous couch to half crouch, even though the room was well lit. She winced.

Felicia stood in the doorway. Her hair was back to its usual afro and she looked as flawless as usual. Cam had to note the three hundred dollar heeled boots and restrain herself from wondering if those were the equivalent of one of Michelle's classes.

Felicia, predictably, looked crushed.

"Cammie," she said quietly. Cam hated that. No one _ever_ called her Cammie.

"Felicia," she said coldly instead.

"I came to apologize," Felicia proclaimed. Cam highly doubted it, but anything Felicia was about to say came to a staggering halt in the face of what Booth was holding.

"Oh my God," Felicia breathed. "She's here."

"Did you tell Daddy?" Cam asked in a hard voice.

"I don't remember," Felicia murmured as she brushed past her older sister to stare down at her niece. Cam felt a rush of hatred hot and cruel swamp her. She tamped it down. No one was supposed to feel that way about her sister.

"Could you try?" she snarled.

"I think I told him," Felicia threw back over her shoulder as she bent at the waist to thrust a finger at the sleeping baby. Cam wanted to inform her babies Toni's age didn't yet have motor control to grasp. At least not asleep they didn't. Booth looked equally uncomfortable as Felicia's afro pushed into his face. He tightly closed both eyes and lips and leaned away. She didn't notice.

"What do you want Felicia?" Felicia spun around, as if being reminded of her errand turned the handle on the water works.

"I know I've been horrible to you, and I'm really, really sorry, but I'm in trouble." She paused for both a huge breath and dramatic effect. "Like trouble with the law."

Sergio, who had never met nor heard of Felicia, looked intrigued. Booth and Cam shared a look of utter exasperation.

"What kind of trouble?" he asked. Felicia hardly glanced at him and all his tattoos. He looked slightly put off at her unknowing rancor. Felicia scuffed a foot while taking a huge indrawn sigh. Booth and Cam lifted their eyebrows; in contrast to the lifting motion, she felt her stomach plummet to her kneecaps. She knew what Felicia needed.

"I…need more money." Cam almost exploded. Booth did.

"_More_ money!" he stormed. "After you drained Michelle's college fund? After you burned her brother's letters?" he gestured at Cam "After you've been _horrible_ to her? How can you come here and ask that?" Toni started fussing. Cam rescued her from Booth, who had surged to his feet to tower over Felicia. She cowered properly.

"Booth, stop," Cam sighed. She turned to her sister and for the first time in her life said:

"No. Felicia, I'm sorry, but I have two daughters. They need the money more than you do. They need to eat, and go to school." Felicia's tears had already been welling up in her eyes in preparation. She let them go with a big foghorn burst of sobbing as she slowly unwound into the couch, an unraveling ball of yarn. Cam noticed she still had the presence of mind to smooth her cardigan before sitting on it.

"I know before what I did was wrong," Felicia hiccupped. "And I know that I was horrible. Honestly, I don't even know why I said that. I didn't even burn the letters. I didn't mean any of it – really and I didn't spend the money on myself and –"

"Wait, what?" Cam asked, interrupting her.

"I gave all the money to him. To Jet. I didn't take any."

"No, about the letters." Cam felt her heart start pounding hard in her ears.

"I couldn't burn them," Felicia wept into her hands. "I wanted to. I lit the match, but I felt so horrible. So guilty. I felt like I was stealing from you." Cam raised her eyebrows. Funny that the letters were the only things Felicia had felt she had stolen.

"So will you loan me the money?" Felicia asked hopefully, as if this sudden tidbit of information had made Cam more amenable to her ridiculous plea.

"No," Cam said flatly. "You're right. What you did was far enough. I can't trust you anymore Lisey. No way."

"Bu..but…" stuttered Felicia, as if suddenly realizing that the plan was not going her way despite all of her usual strategic crying and begging. She was a spoiled child suddenly meeting an adult who wouldn't hold with her tantrums. The thought of her not succeeding had never occurred in her darkest nightmares.

"But…he'll…" Felicia dropped her voice to a whisper to emphasize. "He'll kill me. He said it himself. He said if I don't have another $10,000 for him by next Monday he'll kill me."

"Then don't go see him," Cam said in exasperation. Honestly, Felicia could be so dense.

Sergio, who had been quiet until this time, suddenly joined the rest of the room on his feet, his countenance thunderous. Cam felt her heart sink. He didn't understand.

"What is _wrong_ with you? Why are you such a freaking cold puta? Your sister is in trouble, damn it! And you won't even listen to her. Is this how you treated Mayra? You always said you two were like sisters."

Cam tried to explain but Sergio steamrolled her words.

"I don't want to hear it. You said your life was goin' good! Well then help your sister! She needs the money and you've got it."

"That's not how it works," Cam tried again.

"It _is_ how it works!" Sergio bellowed. Felicia had unwrapped herself from the couch and sidled towards her previously unknown teammate. "That's what family does!"

"Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money," Cam groaned.

"Where are you supposed to drop it?" Sergio interrupted, addressing Felicia. She drew herself up, seeming to decide that his desire to help her had settled the matter.

"I'm supposed to go back to his studio."

"His studio," Booth said in quiet disbelief. "This guy was scamming you for luxury condos and you knew he lived in a studio flat?"

"He was moving too," Felicia snapped defensively. Cam was irritated. How thick could you get?

"Okay, look," Booth said, suddenly commanding with his extinguished but not extinct air of a soldier. "This is what we're going to do…"


	34. Everything But The Kitchen Sink

**Apologies. Midterms. Brutal. Oh and PS first half is for laughs but pg13 for lewdity and raunchy humor. Try to resist reading it now ;)**

* * *

"I'm glad to see I'm so interesting," Brennan remarked dryly. Cam had the grace to blush as Cole gave a very convincing performance of being sound asleep, his head lolling onto the back of the couch.

The lab was in the lounge; they had left the interns in the 'nursery.' Brennan and Booth had agreed to supervise their godchildren for the night. Hodgins, Angela, Cole and Cam had all planned an elaborate double date. For the first time in weeks the two women had all managed to wrestle into dresses and curl their hair. Cam had rarely felt so glamorous and she knew it was because of lack of practice.

Angela had brought out a bottle of wine for a round of conversation, feeling bad leaving Booth and Brennan saddled with the two infants without any socializing. Halfway into Brennan's newest discovery/lecture about her work, Cole had nodded off.

"Should we-" Cam gestured. Booth chuckled under his breath. Cam slapped Cole's arm.

No response.

"Cole," she whispered under her breath. She looked up as she shook him hard. "It's a surgeon thing…I-" she was interrupted by Cole's loud groan.

"Jesus Camille. We've done it like three times. Could you keep it in your pants for like a sec-" he opened his eyes and closed his mouth. "-ond?"

Booth's chuckle became a roar of laughter echoed by everyone else. Cam dropped her face into her hands.

"Getting busy playing doctor?" Angela winked.

"With the doctor," Cole corrected cheekily.

"A healthy sexual life is not humorous," Brennan touted with a frown. Another round of laughter broke out at her idea of humor. Angela nodded at her.

"Keep that in mind sweetie," and left Brennan to puzzle through that.

"Glad to see you finally scoring," Booth hit her on the arm. Cam swallowed several times, her face stuck in the odd grin of the mortified.

"I'm _sorry_," Cole whispered in exasperation, "but that's how I _usually_ get woken up!" His whisper was more for them than her. Everyone doubled over. Hodgins wiped tears from his eyes as Angela leaned against his shoulder.

"I'm glad my sex life is so amusing to you," Cam sniped waspishly at Booth. "No, no," he said, attempting to be placating with serious hand gestures that didn't match the stupid little grin on his face. "I'm glad you got picked up by a cheesy line."

"Who said it was cheesy?" Cole objected. Everyone continued laughing until Cam herself cracked a wry grin.

"I bet I can guess it," Booth nodded with a wink. He tapped Cam on the shoulder purposefully. "Ask me what time it is."

"Okay…what time is it?"

"No you have to say, 'do you have the time.'" Cam dutifully walked into the bait.

"Do you have the time?" Booth winked ludicrously.

"Do you have the energy?"

"Oh!" Hodgins catcalled. "And that's how it's done!"

"That's the worst pick up line I've ever heard," Cam mocked disparagingly.

"No," Hodgins laughed. "The worst I've heard is 'Did you know your hair and my pillow are perfectly color coordinated?'"

"Wait, what?" coughed Angela into her wine glass. "How would that pick up a girl? That just proves he's gay to even notice these things."

"Burn," Cole said in a hurt voice. "I have black sheets that go beautifully with Cam's hair…"

"Don't say it," she warned him as he wiggled his eyebrows. He did anyway.

"…down there."

"Oh!" Hodgins called again as they all laughed harder. Angela leaned forward with a sultry expression on her face that had Hodgins choking more than laughing on his mouthful of tepid red wine.

"Excuse me," she laid a hand on Cam's sleeve. "Is your dress felt?"

"What?" Cam asked in bewilderment. She blushed into her drink. "No." Angela winked and nodded with a cock to her hip.

"Would you like it to be?"

"Damn!" crowed Booth. Cam spat her wine back into her glass in helpless laughter.

"Well that answers that question," Cole put in, jerking a thumb at her. "Maybe swallow next time?" She hit him between the legs and he gasped for air. Everyone else choked helplessly on their own spit.

"Okay, okay," wheezed Cole, "I'll tell you."

"What? No…you didn't use a line on me…" Cam stuttered, trying to remember anything embarrassing he might be about to reveal.

"But I was thinking it," he winked. "And it's a _good _one."

"Tell us!" Hodgins rooted.

"Yes please," Brennan put in primly; she had been laughing more out of good spirit, Cam suspected, than comprehension.

"Cole," she warned. He grinned roguishly, his eyebrows tilting down in that terrible, dangerous way. He turned his head sharply as he literally licked his chops and brought on his incredibly sexy and incredibly annoying Boston brogue.

"Hey baby, I'm Irish. Do you have any Irish in you?" He waited expectantly while the others catcalled her to respond. She didn't know where it was going but she could tell it was somewhere bad. She heaved a huge sigh and finally squeaked:

"No –" but before she could say anything else, Cole had flung his arm around her and waggled his eyebrows.

"Would you like some?" It took her a few seconds to get it before she flushed like a firework. Angela and Hodgins were digging tiny nail shaped marks into each other's arms as they laughed raucously. Booth had to set his wine glass down to hold on to his chair. Brennan shook her head ruefully.

"Do you want to go?" Cam asked Angela, trying very hard to ignore the three men dying of laughter.

"I don't know, are you _coming?"_ Cole squeaked in.

"Oh my God, what are you, seventeen?" Cole winked again.

"I won't tell if you won't."

"Oh my God!" she screeched. "Can we please play like adults?"

"Not a word," Angela said severely to her husband pointing her finger.

"What plays between us, stays between us." Cole, who had been trying to stand, collapsed back on the couch in helpless laughter as a cherry red Hodgins stood sheepishly and took his wife's arm.

"Get out," Angela pointed at Cole and then at the door. Completely unfairly, Cole obediently slunk before her, a recalcitrant smug smile on his stupidly handsome face.

"Have fun tonight," Booth encouraged her with a wink and a thumbs up. He then proceeded to stick his thumb –

"OUCH!" he yelped.

"You were being lewd," Brennan informed him severely. A handprint reddened his cheek. Cam high fived her coworker who completed the gesture awkwardly.

"You're my hero," she informed Brennan.

"Jesus Bones."

"I thought you said you weren't supposed to swear in Jesus' name," she reminded him.

"Yeah but –"

"But what? I thought you were raising Parker to do as Jesus would do. I believe Jesus would have slapped you."

"_Burn_," Hodgins catcalled from down the corridor. "Cam, you coming?"

"Hold on, let me check," Cole answered him. She heard a sound of a high five.

"NOT A WORD," she hissed at Booth and stalked away to the sound of the partner's bickering.

"Well do I get to slap you?"

"I suppose that's only fair."

"Do I get to choose where?"

Another slap.

"Well then that's just two," Booth added cheekily. "Hey, what the, OUCH! Look, if I had known you liked it rough – OUCH. Okay, seriously Bones what the –OUCH!"

"Oh. Sorry. I thought you were going to say something obscene again."

"My face hurts."

"I said I was sorry."

Cam was too far away to hear anymore.

* * *

"How's it going?" Cam asked sarcastically into her Bluetooth earpiece. She could _hear_ Booth wince.

"Not so loud," he grumbled back into his own. "I'm in the car."

"Yes I know," Cam sighed patiently. "Where are you guys now?"

"Me and the meathead are still on stakeout in the car outside the guy's place."

"Where's…Felicia?" Cam said her sister's name with distaste.

"She's still walking. Her heels slow her down."

"Yeah," sighed Cam. She steepled her fingers over her desk, staring absently at both of her daughters. Michelle was playing with Toni.

"Look here's the plan," Booth said for the thousandth time. Cam knew it was to calm his nerves to go over the playbook over and over.

"K."

"She walks in with the fake check. He'll get mad. She'll say she didn't know he needed cash. When he starts being really threatening and gives himself away, she'll buzz us and we'll come in with his confession on tape."

"You really think she's smart enough to pull that off?" Cam scoffed darkly.

"Careful," Booth growled. "I have a feeling someone thinks so." Cam knew what Booth meant, despite his careful wording. Sergio had taken to Felicia like a duck to water. She had not warmed to him as much.

"Ok, here she goes," Booth murmured. "She's rounded the corner." Cam swallowed as she imagined her sister's steps faltering. As much as she disliked Felicia, she couldn't ever will her sister into danger. She wasn't sure how much Felicia was exaggerating.

There was a horrible thumping noise and Booth's breath came hot and quick over his earpiece.

"STOP! FBI!" he bellowed.

"Policia!" she could hear Sergio adding. A woman screamed. Cam wondered if it was Felicia. She wanted to yank the phone hard away from her ear but her gaze was arrested by Toni. She felt sick to her stomach. She sank back in her chair at the sounds she was catching. Scraping chairs. The distinctive sounds of a body slamming up against the wall. Booth grunting. Glass breaking. And crying. Crying. Crying.

"Cam?" Michelle was at her elbow with a worried frown. Cam gasped in shock.

"You scared me," she whispered.

"Sorry," Michelle and Booth responded simultaneously.

"Do you want to take her?" Michelle asked, holding out her arms. Toni wailed, red faced and angry. Cam breathed a huge sigh of relief. She uncrossed her legs that she had kept tightly bound against her body, making her stomach knot with familiar tension. She put her arms out.

"I'll take her."

"Felicia?" Booth asked in confusion into the earpiece. "Hey – hey – buddy. I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"The baby," she retorted crisply.

"I'll call you from the car."

"Okay," she whispered.

"Are you okay?" Michelle asked worriedly. A horn honked, interrupting her. She looked immediately awkward. Neither of them had much experience with the new honesty between them. Cam could tell Michelle didn't want to leave her in the middle of an unspoken breakthrough – or breakdown- the way they had often dealt with their issues in the past.

"Go," Cam assured her. "I'll be fine here."

"That's Bekah," Michelle said awkwardly at the same time, shouldering her purse with a half shrug of embarrassment at the timing. Cam raised an eyebrow.

"Where are you going?"

"Just out with friends."

"Michelle," Cam said warningly. Michelle swallowed.

"I'll be good."

"Be home by midnight. Sober."

"Cam!" she shrieked, or protested, Cam wasn't a good enough mother to tell. Yet.

The car honked again. Michelle made a disgusted teenager face that was more suited to her age than their previous tentative steps.

"_Fine_," she groaned.

"I love you too!" Cam called after her.

"Mmm, a fresh start to the morning," Cole called, sidling through the door.

"Hi Cole," Michelle said coyly.

"Michelle," he teased back in her favorite mocking tone. She giggled, in better spirits than she had left with Cam.

"Can you take-" he fumbled.

"Sure, I'm out the door though," she said as she expertly took one of his daughters and placed her on a quilt in the corner of the living room so that Cole could walk more easily without juggling. Andie took a few tottering steps before abruptly sitting down the way young toddlers were wont to do.

"I'm going to go put her in the playpen," Cole remarked as he breezed by with Kitty.

"Isn't it her nap time?" Cam called. "You can put her in the crib."

"What about Toni?"

"She'll get cranky in about half an hour. They can share." Cole looked surprise as he backed down the hallway, so familiar with the contours in the carpeting now he didn't even trip when he turned blindly through the correct door to Toni's new butter yellow nursery.

Cole had practically moved in. The first morning Michelle had walked into the kitchen to find him cheerfully pouring himself a bowl of cereal at six in the morning getting ready for surgery, she had squeaked in shock. But there was no cure to the onslaught of his incorrigible charm. The two had become fast friends, to Cam's dubious surprise.

He became such a nuisance, always forgetting his coats, his briefcase, his laptop, or his favorite pen at her house that she had given him a key more out of exasperation, she suspected, than genuine affection, not that it was lacking. Cam didn't need to be reminded by the spring leaves outside that it was already past the six month mark since they had first met.

Their relationship, however, was cautious and not well defined. Though he had a key to her house, she didn't have one to his. They hadn't discussed anything more serious. Cam half suspected, but never would dare to say aloud, that Cole was waiting out of graciousness (well disguised beneath his endearing jackass personality) for Michelle to go to college so that her home life would be as stable as it could be in her last teenage years after a rough start.

So it was a complete surprise when he ducked back into the living room while she sat nursing Toni and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

"What do you say about me moving two extra cribs in there?" She didn't consult her brain before blurting:

"_What?"_ He looked slightly annoyed.

"Come on doll, I'm always here. I practically live here. And that means the girls live here. We can't keep letting them sleep on the floor or share beds or build a playpen with their blankets and pillows. Let's be realistic. Actually Andie is getting to the age where we could think about a toddler bed – you know, the ones with railings."

"What do I say?" Cam blundered, acutely aware she was half naked and couldn't concentrate when although his words were serious, his eyes were stuck to her chest. He was a twelve year old boy. Honestly. She jerked her shirt back up somewhat modestly but mostly angrily. "You don't even keep your clothes here! You want to move your daughters into my house?" She breathed a huge blustery sigh before pinching the bridge of her nose. He was a twelve year old boy, but she sounded like a petty six year old girl. "What about _your_ house?"

"What about it?"

"What about getting a crib for Toni there?"

"How this usually goes Camille," he said, for once using her name, which he reserved for serious occasions. He came around the couch to sink next to her and absently took Toni from her to bump on his shoulder so she could have her hands free to gesticulate her frustration with him. "One of us would sell our house. And I'm willing for it to be me."

"You're asking me to move in with you?" She had not expected this. In reality he had sort of invited himself to move in with her. He frowned.

"Wait…I'm confused…did I miss something? Did you or did you not give me your house key?"

"Yes but-"

"Was I not there when your daughter was born?"

"Yes but-"

"We're not the usual couple, in case you haven't noticed."

"Don't call me Camille," was the only inane thing she could think of to say. Her phone rang in her lap, scaring her. Toni began to cry. She stared at Booth's name. "I have to take this," she muttered, and walked down the hall before slamming her bedroom door shut.

"_What_?" she snapped at Booth. He didn't have to speak, only draw breath, for Cam to know her best friend was flabbergasted by her response. He had been expecting her to be waiting anxiously for his call. She would have if Cole hadn't just dropped the metaphorical anvil on her head.

"It went well," he assured her. "Is everything okay? Where are you? Are you at the lab?" His concern for Brennan would have been more touching in light of all they had overcome if it wasn't so goddamn annoying.

"I'm at home. I'm fine."

"Uh huh." He sounded as convinced as she felt.

"Cole asked me to move in with him," she blurted. She corrected herself as she ground her teeth and began pacing back and forth. She felt nauseous again with new worry. She tugged at the waistband of her jeans. They were too loose now. "Well actually he invited himself to move in. To my house. Can you believe that? He just asked me if he could put cribs in."

"I didn't think your house was big enough," Booth said practically. "Wouldn't the two of you –"

"Move into his house?" she screeched. "There's nothing wrong with my house!"

"I was going to say," Booth said patiently, "look for a new one."

"Why are you taking this so calmly?" she asked wildly. "I'm freaking out!"

"I can see that," he said in deep amusement.

"Don't be smart with me," she warned him. She didn't need to see his expression again to know he was making a face.

"Who me? I'm not smart."

"Why is this happening?" she moaned.

"I'd thought you'd be happy."

"I am! I mean – I don't know! What do you think?"

"I think you should call Angela," he said quickly.

"Booth?" she asked questioningly before snatching her phone away. "The bastard hung up on me," she muttered.

"Is it something I said?" Cole asked. Cam leaned against the door; he could tell because he jiggled the knob and try to force it inwards. She dug her heels into the floor. He could have easily forced his way in; he didn't. He brought out the worst in her. She was being childish and she knew it.

"Angel, open the door."

"I can't," she said, very quietly.

"Just get out of the way." She unwillingly stood away but he wisely stayed in the threshold as she stood in front of him. He had left Toni in her crib.

"You don't want to move in together?"

"No but-"

"Is it the way I asked? I could do it better, I promise." He was eager, a coyote grin turning slate grey eyes all puppy dog.

"No but-"

"Is it because of Michelle?"

"No but…" This time he let her finish. She couldn't.

"Is this because of Toni?" he said it softly this time, and came through the door to wrap his perfect surgeon hands around her arms. He tried to catch her gaze by squirming his head into her line of sight; not easy when she was trying very hard to have a staring contest with the floor.

"No." She said it mulishly, but resignedly. The floor won and she looked up at him.

"I can't always keep guessing. Our relationship can't be about one of us guessing until we figure it out."

"I don't know how," she confessed.

"How to what? Move in? Build a crib?"

"This."

"This what? I just said it about the guessing doll, it's damnably annoying."

"I don't know how to do this."

"God just _tell me!_" Cole exploded, running his fingers through his hair and then grabbing his opposite arms tightly instead of holding hers. She felt the cold air come to claim her sudden goosebumps.

"What if…what if he comes somewhere down the line…and I…"

"The father?" She felt sick settle on her tongue at that word. He wasn't Toni's father. He was just some guy in a bar who happened to get her pregnant. Toni's real father…he was standing in the room. But she couldn't say that aloud. Things usually ended badly, anyways.

"We'll deal with it," he promised, folding her into a hug suddenly with the mercurial moods he carried with him like an extra jacket. She was purposefully stiff in his arms.

"We may not make it," she said steadily. He looked thunderstruck.

"Now?" She inhaled sharply. Dear Lord she really did suck at being a girl. No wonder her mother had preferred Felicia; she was easier to relate to. Cole thought she was breaking up with him now. She had been trying to be pragmatic.

"God no! I'm just…it's good to be…"

"Prepared?" he said dryly. "You think I'm not going to stick around."

"I'm saying people change. What you want today may not be what you want tomorrow."

"That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard," he said flatly, and she felt her hopes lift until he rolled his eyes. "I like Chinese food. I've always liked Chinese food. I always _will_ like Chinese food. That's not going to change."

"What I'm saying isn't about Chinese food…"

"You're the Chinese food!"

"What?"

"You're the sticky rice that gets in the sheets when we eat in bed and the crumbs from the fortune cookies we always crush because we actually physically fight over them. You're that extra soy sauce packet that I always hide in my pocket so you won't steal it."

"You hide it?" Cam squeaked in righteous indignation. Her throat was too full to squeak about anything else.

"People change? Really? Look at Felicia. Did she change?" Cam unwillingly shook her head. "Have you really changed over the years? Do you really think that you wouldn't be proud of where you were at fifteen? At five?"

"Well I didn't imagine I'd be a coroner at five," she replied tartly.

"A federal coroner," he reminded her with a smug grin, "and a forensic pathologist. You're like a super crime fighter. A superhero team like the Fantastic Four. Most kids would be impressed with that."

"I…"

"And you got that same spitfire temper," he said. His voice dropped about two octaves. "On _and_ off the field…" She smacked him, but not with any real force.

"You're just trying to charm me," she said unwillingly.

"Is it working?" he asked hopefully.

"Doll," she falsely drawled, smacking him hard on his butt and pulling his lapels closer. "You bet it is."


	35. Go Big Or Go Home

**The first words are prophetic. I'm sorry there have been so many delayed updates on this story, but just a couple more reviews please :)**

* * *

"So this is the end. It's done." Cam looked up, startled, and found Felicia shivering in the doorway of her office. Cam realized it was because she had her personal air conditioner at full blast; she was hot blooded, but she felt a little bad when Hodgins detoured to her office periodically in two lab coats, begging her to turn the heat up despite the fact that it was April.

"What's finished?" Cam repeated, unconsciously correcting her sister's grammar. Felicia noticed, for once, and made a face.

"Well…Jet is in jail. So…here it is." She held an envelope and Cam, incredulous, took it from her and peeked inside.

"Apparently they drained his bank account and tracked down various people he had swindled."

"This fast?" Cam asked in disbelief; that dead end job was some poor schmuck's punishment for screwing up in the field. Remittances weren't usually returned for a couple months or even years, if at all if there was no one left to claim them.

"Yeah well," Booth said, skulking in the doorway, "I took care of the paperwork for you at least. As a favor." She smiled tightly at what his words really meant: _as an apology_.

"All of it?" Cam asked in shock, still not pulling out the check to stare at it in fear it would disappear or have a tricky decimal.

"Well," Felicia sighed, "not….all of it. I did spend some."

Cam bit back 'that was to be expected.'

"I'll totally pay you back."

"I like wine," Cam told her with a suppressed smile. Felicia did at least have the grace to blush.

"I think I remember what kind it was."

"Sergio is good for you," Cam observed.

Booth snorted his opinion. Cam didn't need a translation from the peculiar Booth language. She strode over and smacked him hard on the stomach.

"Also," Felicia said quietly, "there's something else." She held out another envelope. Cam didn't know what to expect, but her heart plummeted in a thunderous free fall when she watched Booth's face transform quickly to his hard masked FBI status. He spun on his heel and left her doorway, glowering.

This envelope wasn't the paycheck size, but rather a manila envelope used to hold documents. She unwound the string while Felicia played with a piece of her newly flattened hair; her afro had been short lived. Very Felicia, never happy with what she had.

She stuffed a hand inside and pulled up a sheaf of papers, all old and all crinkled. She swallowed. His handwriting was on all of them. She felt nauseous. The room grew too hot with her vision; the scalding tears making her whole head feel flooded with boiling water. She sat abruptly into her seat. She knew now, why Booth had left.

"I lied," Felicia said softly. "I didn't burn them. I couldn't. Not…not even when I hated you most, or when Tony loved you most. I couldn't."

"He didn't love me the most," was what dropped out of her lips, even though she knew how blatantly untrue it was. Felicia made an ugly face that twisted her pretty features. Cam realized for the first time that with her hair straightened, Felicia actually looked like her sister, and not some random black girl who just happened to hang out with her light skinned strange looking sister.

"Well then he _liked_ you more."

"We just had more in common. You were always with Mom."

"Mom never wrote me any letters." And Cam finally understood. Felicia wasn't angry at Tony for not writing to her, she was angry that she felt that no one ever loved her enough to even make the gesture. It gave her a chip on her shoulder that came out in over enthusiastic selfishness, hoping to force the spoiling, when all she really wanted was for someone to _want_ to spoil her. A hopeless, vicious, lonely cycle.

"We are both so messed up," Cam laughed, and the hot tears that had been corked up inside of her spilled on her face. Felicia, instead of retorting and instigating a fight actually looked terrified.

"You're…you're crying Cammie."

Cam laughed a little more.

"Well…yeah. You didn't think I never cried? That after Andrew…after everybody? Really?"

"Well…yeah," Felicia echoed her. She stared down at her expensive shoes. "Basically. You were the toughest person I ever knew."

"Being tough doesn't mean never crying," she answered quickly, but stopped, absorbing her own words as if a stranger had come into her head and given her that line, something she herself had never considered.

"Lisey…" she began tentatively. "It means a lot. Really."

"Really?" Felicia brightened.

"Yeah. Thank you…for keeping the letters."

"Even after all these years of hoarding them?" Cam thought carefully before she answered; she couldn't deny her entire life would have been changed had she got them when she was supposed to. Her reactions would be different and she would be painfully waiting every few years for another. She wouldn't be where she was. Who she was.

"Yeah," she finally said slowly. "I think they found me when they needed to anyway."

"Do you think…I could come see the baby?" Felicia stared at her as hopeful as if she were a dog begging for scraps. Cam felt her heart bruise; Felicia finally realized she wasn't part of the family sitting at Cam's table. She was beneath it.

"Her name," Cam said with a quiet sad smile, acknowledging Felicia's new deference (probably short lived). "Is Toni."

"Really?"

Cam nodded. "Yeah," she said softly. "It was never going to be anything else."

"What about Mom?"

"I thought…" Cam awkwardly bit her lip. "That…was for you."

Felicia covered her mouth with a few fingers and turned away.

"How's next week?"

"Sure," Cam said just as carefully. "She's not here today, sorry." She didn't mention where Toni was: with her two temporary sisters, learning basic motor skills while Andie patiently petted her face and gabbled to her in baby talk.

"Okay." Felicia was struggling not to look at Cam. They didn't hug but Cam nodded.

"I'm glad you came." She actually was.

"Okay."

"I love you," Cam told her honestly. "But honestly Felicia if you ever pull this shit again…you're right. We won't be family anymore." Felicia nodded seriously.

"I know that. I do love you Camille."

"I believe you."

"Okay."

There was a pause in which Felicia surveyed the room.

"It's freezing in here."

"Really? I think it's pretty warm."

"Are you crazy? Maybe you're sick."

Cam laughed. "That's all I would need."

"You look pretty pale."

"Well compared to you…" teased Cam.

"You sure you're not sick?"

"I'm sure. I've got in under control. I'm not nauseous or anything and I went to the doctor just in case."

"Okay. I'll see you next week?"

"How's Wednesday?"

"Around 2?"

"Sounds fine."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"Are you going to read those now?" Cam smiled.

"Actually I have to go to the drug store. And make some reservations." Felicia smiled and wiggled her eyebrows.

"Ooh la la." Cam borrowed his coyote grin.

* * *

"Emilio's? Really?" Cole teased her with a deep Boston brogue that she hated and loved. He pulled his chair out and sunk down, looking casually devastating in a blazer shirt combo with very dark Levi's. She had told him to dress well for the occasion.

"It's grown on me," Cam defended primly. She was painted back into one of her dresses from work. Emilio had enthusiastically kissed her hello on both cheeks (thankfully not on the mouth) and escorted her to a table with three chairs.

"So on the phone," Cole smiled, his grey eyes sparkling with good humor over her mysterious call earlier that day, "you said we were meeting someone."

"That's right."

"Someone important."

"Yep."

"A major player in your life."

"Yep."

"And now do I have to guess?"

"If you want to."

"That's easy. It's your father. You want me to meet your Dad." Cam flushed a little uncomfortably and shook her head. It had never occurred to her to introduce Cole to her father; he had already met the most important people in her family, whose opinions she valued the most. Although her father would be upset she had Booth had broken up, he would be happy to see her with a stable family man, and would just about die to meet his first grandchild.

"No?" Cole said in surprise and folded his surgeon hands on the table, interlocking his fingers. "Interesting. The plot thickens. Okay, give me a minute." He looked in the process of thinking very deeply about something while their young waiter Benny brought them some bread.

"Heaven," Cam sighed, tearing into a small loaf.

"Okay, do I get another guess?" Cam shrugged, stuffing her mouth full of the middle of the white bread that steamed against the sides of her cheek.

"You can guess as much as you want. But if you aren't going to eat that?" He laughed an pushed the rest of the bread towards her. She gestured impatiently for the butter but he already had it in her hands before she was done. She flashed him a chipmunk smile.

"Fhanks," she gulped. She really, really loved him sometimes. And it usually occurred to her over simple things like how he knew how much she loved butter.

"Is it Felicia? I mean, I've seen her around, heard her, I should say, but we've never really met."

Cam shook her head before gulping, painfully washing her bread down with diet coke.

"Okay…I know everyone from the lab…are we meeting a new intern?"

She shook her head and gestured for Benny who mushroomed up next to her to take her order; her favorite, number 14 please and thank you.

Cole stopped guessing to do the same. He ground his teeth around his wrinkled nose while he sipped out of his own glass.

"You're grinding your teeth," she teased.

"Oh shut up," he sniped miserably, put out that he wasn't winning a childish guessing game.

"Do you want me to tell you?"

"No," he said mulishly. "I want to guess."

"I don't think you're going to guess."

"Aha! A clue! So it's someone I won't expect. Oh my God." His face blanked and she was worried he _had _guessed. "You didn't track down my family did you? Is Johnny putting you up to this?" He twisted around looking for someone Cam had never met.

"No," she sighed. "It's –"

"No! Don't ruin it!" Cole put his hands over his ears. "La la la la!"

"You're such a child," but she said it affectionately; she also said it almost every day.

"Is it your cousin?"

"No."

"That kid dating your sister who was your partner's something or something?"

"No. How do you know about Sergio?"

"Booth told me."

"I don't know how I feel about you guys being friends."

"Who said we were friends?" Cole sounded scandalized at the very thought. "Is it-" he continued guessing through three refills of their glasses, followed Cam to the bathroom and stood outside the door yelling through while she refused to answer, and all the way back to their table where their food was waiting for them.

Cam picked up her fork and stuck it into her lasagna but Cole put a hand on her arm and for one wild, insane moment she thought he was going to chastise her for not saying grace, something he did with his daughters. Instead he mildly raised his eyebrows, smiling with all of his teeth, even the crooked ones.

"Don't you think it would be polite to wait for whoever we are waiting for?" Cam took a deep breath and smiled a grin to rival his own.

"Our food would get cold. It'd be a long wait because they aren't getting here for nine months."

"I-" Cole began but squeaked. He gaped, more fish like than coyote suddenly and closed his mouth before trying again. "When-" Cam put down her fork and grabbed his hands, her own eyes shiny.

"The cherry blossom festival." He made another gurgling sound. She finally spread her hands and offered a hug.

"I'm pregnant," she said simply.

And he laughed.

* * *

**The End.**


End file.
